The stratigraphic knowledge of Panama was, until now, spread over hundreds of scientific/geologic publications written during the past 120 years. The construction of the Panama Canal during the early twentieth century helped galvanizing the engineering and geological disciplines to understand the tectonic, sedimentation and biodiversity of the Cenozoic Era in this part of the world. Later, few petroleum companies arrived on the scene and contributed to our knowledge of the sub-surface. The past thirty years saw a surge of studies by many institutions in areas away from the Canal, such as in Darien, Azuero Peninsula, Bocas del Toro, and the Burica Peninsula near the Costa Rica Border. Our most recent knowledge came from the widening of the Panama Canal between 2007 and 2016. It is from all these older and recent studies that the present Lexicon draws its content. It provides the historical background of all described geological units in Panama and summarizes the lithological and paleontological knowledge of each units in an easy-to-search format.

One of the largest and least documented populations of dugongs (Dugong dugon) resides in the coastal waters of the United Arab Emirates, and waters surrounding Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar. The archaeological record of dugongs in the Gulf Region is abundant, but little is known about their fossil record in the region. Here we report an isolated sirenian rib fragment from the Futaisi Member of the Fuwayrit Formation near the town of Al Ruwais, in northern Qatar. The Fuwayrit Formation is a marine Pleistocene deposit exposed onshore in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Based on the correlative dating of the basal Futaisi Member with other onshore platforms, the rib fragment is approximately 125 ka. We propose that this isolated rib (likely the first rib from the right side) belongs to Dugongidae, with strong similarities to extant Dugong. We cannot, however, eliminate the possibility that it belongs to an extinct taxon, especially given its similarities with other fossil dugongid material from both Qatar and elsewhere in the world. Aside from reflecting the presence of Gulf seagrass communities in the Pleistocene, this occurrence also suggests that different (and potentially multiple) lineages of sirenians inhabited the Gulf Region in the geologic past.

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L'analyse des céramiques et des rebuts de cuisson provenant de cinq ateliers de potier repérés sur le territoire de la cité de Béziers amène à constater des similitudes entre les productions. Parmi ces dernières, certaines peuvent s'inclure morphologiquement dans un ensemble plus vaste de fabrications propres à la Méditerranée occidentale, celui des céramiques communes à "bords noircis" et à "patine cendrée". Ce groupe de vases d'usage culinaire trouve dans le Biterrois une nouvelle région de fabrication, phénomène attesté au moins entre le milieu du 1er et le début du IIIème s. de n. è.

Poursuivant la constitution des groupes de référence analytiques des ateliers d'amphores de la Gaule romaine, le présent travail montre la caractérisation chimique, par l'analyse par activation neutronique, de deux groupes d'ateliers situés dans des zones encore inconnues de ce point de vue : Aspiran et Tressan, dans le bassin de l'Hérault et Fréjus, où les productions d'un atelier (Le Pauvadou) et d'autres trouvailles du voisinage forment un groupe bien distinct. L'analyse de grappe est utilisée pour illustrer la séparation fine des différentes productions d'Aspiran et la distinction analytique des ateliers. Le type d'amphore Gauloise 5 produit à Fréjus est décrit pour la première fois.