编号 11 (2023)

Petrified wood belongs to the group of florogenic jewelry and ornamental materials. It is widely used for the manufacture of various types of products. The paper presents first results of a detailed gemological and mineral-geochemical study of the petrified wood of jewelry and ornamental quality from Sakhalin Island. The petrified wood is associated with the Santonian and Campanian deposits of the Late Cretaceous age. According to the mineral composition and decorative and technological characteristics, two types of petrified wood can be distinguished. The first type of petrified wood is characterized by almost complete replacement of the wood original organic compounds mainly by quartz and, to a lesser extent, by calcite with inclusions of pyrite, dolomite, microcline, and kaolinite. In the second type, the role of calcite increases significantly, while the quartz content decreases. Fragments of petrified wood are of large size and good decorative, technological, and ecological characteristics. It can be collected in the rivers with other types of jewelry and ornamental materials at little costs and without destroying the environment.

African baobab is an extremely unpretentious tree with many useful properties. Its various parts are eaten, used in medicine, and in the manufacture of household products. Baobabs are of great importance to people living in dry areas. What are the reasons for baobabs to withstand extreme droughts, grow in unfavorable soils, quickly recover from damage, and live up to 2 thousand years or more? The answer to these questions lies in the tree’s internal structure: new “stems” appear inside the baobab as it grows. This phenomenon is observed only in trees of the genus Adansonia. In order to understand how the structure of the baobab changes with its age and how this aff ects its growth and life expectancy, we went to the northeast of the Republic of South Africa, to the Limpopo province, where the range of the African baobab begins.

General information about green algae of the Lanciculaceae family is given. The data on a rare find of the species Quasilancicula sergaensis in the sediments of the Lower Emsian of the western slope of the Middle Urals are presented.

The museum of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Saint Petersburg) exhibits a taxidermy piece and a skeleton of an Asian elephant (Elephas maximus Linnaeus, 1758), mounted in 1806–1807 for Saint Petersburg Kunstkamera. The technique and the anatomical accuracy of this taxidermy piece are exceptional for the early 19th century. The name of the maker was considered lost. However, analyzes of the archival documents revealed that the taxidermy piece was mounted by a papier-mâché artist Carl Thimpont, and the skeleton was constructed under the supervision of anatomist Piotr Zaslavsky. The drawings by anatomist Petrus Camper from his book of 1802 provided a theoretical basis for both of them. The elephant itself was a diplomatic gift from the Emir of Bukhara to Catharine the Great. The animal was kept in the imperial menagerie since 1796 to 1806.

Составители Я. Э. Юдович, М. П. Кетрис. Сыктывкар: Коми республиканская типография, 2023. 524 с.