THE ROLE OF TECHNICAL AND NATURAL SCIENCES IN STONE MONUMENTS CARE

Stone monuments maintenance requires the systematic approach which should be based on the cooperation among specialist through more branches, especially from humanities, natural and technical sciences. The main aim of this article is to present the benefit of the cooperation among geologists and civil engineers and share preliminary results of the Czech Ministry of Culture project DG20P02OVV021 “Stone surface topography and its application in stone element restoration field”. Historic stone surfaces often contain stonemasons tool traces as an undoubtable part of historical monument value. The study and protection of the testimony of past is therefore very important. As a part of our project, we are conducting field and laboratory research of historic stone surfaces bearing the original tool traces. The studied area is the Prague urban conservation zone for its stone monuments richness from Romanesque to present days. First, the geological research of the stone masonry surface is conducted in the cooperation with archaeologists. The tool traces are documented, and the state of stone is described. Because of the negative influence of weathering processes on the stone durability, respectively tool traces, we decided to monitor the chosen historical stone surface using the hyperspectral analysis. Based on the analysis results we will be able to better understand the behaviour of stone surface and traces on it during the time.

Indonesia’s contribution in tracing the human ancestor

Since Darwin’s postulated the origin of the human species from an ape-like ancestor, the search for the missing link between ape and human had begun. In 1887, Eugene Dubois traveled from the Netherlands to Indonesia to search for the missing link. He eventually discovered human fossils in Wajak, Kedungbrubus, and Trinil to which he named Pithecanthropus erectus. The research was then continued by Ter Haar (1931) in Ngandong, Dujfyes, and his assistant, Andoyo (1936) in Perning, Mojokerto, and Von Koenigswald (1936-1940) in Sangiran, who successfully discovered many Homo erectus fossils. Since the 1960s, Sartono (ITB), T. Jacob (UGM), and Geological Research and Development Centre (Indonesia) continue the study, adding the collection of the specimens. Collaboration with the National Museum of Science and Nature, Tokyo concluded that Indonesian Homo erectus went through local evolution instead of static evolution condition. Indonesia is rich in natural resources and environmental conditions that were suitable for the evolution of early humans as shown by the discovery of several Homo erectus skeleton fossils that were not found in most other countries. This is a blessing left by early humans to us.

Mineral Photos Recognition Based on Feature Fusion and Online Hard Sample Mining

Mineral recognition is of importance in geological research. Traditional mineral recognition methods need professional knowledge or special equipment, are susceptible to human experience, and are inconvenient to carry in some conditions such as in the wild. The development of computer vision provides a possibility for convenient, fast, and intelligent mineral recognition. Recently, several mineral recognition methods based on images using a neural network have been proposed for this aim. However, these methods do not exploit features extracted from the backbone network or available information of the samples in the mineral dataset sufficiently, resulting in low recognition accuracy. In this paper, a method based on feature fusion and online hard sample mining is proposed to improve recognition accuracy by using only mineral photo images. This method first fuses multi-resolution features extracted from ResNet-50 to obtain comprehensive information of mineral photos, and then proposes the weighted top-k loss to emphasize the learning of hard samples. Based on a dataset consisting of 14,986 images of 22 common minerals, the proposed method with 10-fold cross-validation achieves a Top1 accuracy of 88.01% on the validation image set, surpassing those of Inception-v3 and EfficientNet-B0 by a margin of 1.88% and 1.29%, respectively, which demonstrates the good prospect of the proposed method for convenient and reliable mineral recognition using mineral photos only.

Archaeological and Geological Research for the Reconstruction of Settlement and Habitation Models along Hadzhiyska River and the Southern Slopes of Eminska Mountain, Bulgaria

The main objective of this paper is to present the fieldwork results ofarchaeological and geological investigations in the area of Hadjiyska river and the southern slopesof Eminska Stara Planina in Bulgaria. The area of interest is home to a large number ofarcheological findings dating back from the Late Antiquity (4-6th c.) and the Middle Ages (7-18thc.), and fewer from older periods (prehistorical, Thracian and Roman periods). Geologicalobservations show presence of alluvial, prolluvial-delluvial, and prolluvial hollocen sediments.Combining the results of archaeological and geological research allowed for (i) the verification ofthe hypothesis that older archaeological objects are covered by accumulated sediments, and (ii) anattempt to look into the livelihood in the area.

PALEOZOIC QUARTZITE OF THE SMRČEVICE IN THE CENTRAL BOSNIA

The paper presents results of detailed geological research of quartzite in the wider area of Smrčevice, southeastern of Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje. Based on the defined boundaries of surface distribution and research results, geological reserves of about 12 million tons have been determined in the wider area of Smrcevica. The quartzite reserves that have been so far determined in this area are at a low level of geological research. The paper contains an overview of the geological characteristics of the area, qualitative and quantitative characteristics of quartzite, and the mineral raw material potential of quartzite in the Smrčevice area according to the PERC standard. The results of the conducted research indicate that the general geological and technical-exploitation factors are relatively favorable and indicate a possible profitable exploitation of the deposit. Taking into account the significant raw material potential, and the possibility of expanding the existing raw material base, this area has special importance for the perspective development of quartzite exploitation and its use in the production of ferrosilicon and silico-metals.

The Impact of Medieval Mining upon the Environment of the Central Balkans

The paper examines the impact of medieval mining upon the environment, based upon the present state of the historiographical, archaeological, and geological research. By the middle of the 13th century a massive increase in the exploitation of precious metals is noted, inducing the appearance of settlements in the vicinity of the locations of extraction and production of ores. The problems of water and air pollution occurred, raised by the operation of smelteries inside these settlements or in their immediate vicinity. Although the presence of slag indicates certain metallurgical activity, it is hard to discern the precise purpose and the period of their activity without archaeological excavations. The increase in demand for fuel may have induced deforestation, so the rights to exploit forests were legally regulated. The scope of wood exploitation in the region of Šumadija has been judged by the research estimating the presence of potassium in the previously registered old slag deposits. It is hard to discern the general health status of the inhabitants of the mining regions, since a small portion of skeletal material is examined, not including the one from the most important mining center of Novo Brdo. The anthropological analysis indicates the problems caused by hard physical activity and poor hygiene. The present knowledge on the influence of heavy metals indicates the impact of past mining practices upon the environment and human health. Decomposition of sulphides in the discard deposits and old slag, as well as the leak of acid waters from old shafts, still affect the present pollution of water and soil in the vicinity of mining centres such as Rudnik and Srebrenica. These same reasons may have presented dangers for the population living there during the period of 15th to 17th century. The future archaeological research, with the inclusion of other disciplines, will bring more detailed understanding of the relationship between people and their environment in the mining regions of the Medieval Serbia.

Biodiversity of Bivalves in South Bintan Waters, Riau Archipelago, Indonesia

Bivalves is the second most diverse group of molluscs after gastropods, they are also one of the most important members in marine ecosystems. Their taxonomic classifications are based on their morphology which tend to represent adaptation responses to ecology. The samples of bivalves examined in this study were taken in the South Bintan waters by Marine Geological Research and Development Center, Bandung. Identification of the bivalves shell samples was with the aid of a microscope and NIS-Elements software and identified using an identification book. There were 34 species of bivalves found in South Bintan Waters belong to 14 families. The highest abundance was in Station 1 the location close to the overflow of the river and a harbor (1162.5 ind.m-2) and the lowest was in Station 10 the location Station 10 the location close to a small island which is usually used as a tourist spot (62.5 ind.m-2). Their diversity and eveness index were included in the medium category with H’ value of 0.58-4.12 and e value of 0.11-0.89 respectively. There was species dominance in Station 3 (Liralucina lyngei of Lucinidae) and 10 (Cardites bicolor of Carditidae) but not in other stations. Both species was the most frequent species. Bivalves in South Bintan waters showed many different morphologies which represented their adaptation. The bivalve shells found were of different morphology. There are several forms of bivalve shell morphology that have shape round like species Chama japonica, triangular like species Gemma gemma, fragile like species Dendostrea rosacea. The shell decorations found in the bintan Bivalves samples are Spinose, Commarginally, Commarginally and radially ribbed. The hinge teeth are heteroodont, isodont, and schizodont.