River mouths on the steep, high-relief coast of the French Riviera exhibit thick sequences of Holocene marine, estuarine, deltaic, and river channel-floodplain sediments that overlie basal fluvial Pleistocene gravel. Gravel is uncommon in most of the early to middle Holocene aggradational-progradational marine, estuarine, deltaic sediments, despite an ample supply from rock units in the steep adjoining uplands. River-mouth gravel is common only in late Holocene river channels and in barrier beaches perched on finer-grained nearshore sediments. Neither downslope grain-size fining on alluvial fans nor sediment stacking patterns during sea-level (base-level) rise readily account for the lack of early to middle Holocene gravel in the river-mouth sediment wedges. Holocene sea-level rise led to the storage of fine-grained sediments in shallow marine, estuarine, and deltaic environments in the present coastal zone. We infer that humid temperate conditions, a dense forest cover, landscape stabilization, and a regular quiescent river flow regime associated with the Atlantic climatic optimum limited gravel supply in the adjoining catchments and gravel entrainment downstream during the early Holocene. Sea-level stabilization in the middle and late Holocene coincided with a marked change in bioclimatic conditions toward the present Mediterranean-type regime, which is characterized by a less dense forest cover, soil erosion, and episodic catastrophic floods. The late Holocene was thus a time of downstream bedload channel aggradation, fine-grained floodplain and paludal sedimentation, and seaward flushing of clasts leading to the formation and consolidation of the gravel barrier beaches that bound the rivermouths and embayments.

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Approche climatique de la période romaine dans l'est du Var : recherche et analyse des composantes périodiques sur un concrétionnement centennal (I er-II e siècle apr. J.-C.) de l'aqueduc de Fréjus Climatic approach of the roman period in eastern Var : research and analysis of periodic components of a centennial concrétion of the Fréjus aqueduct (1-2 nd AD

Measurements of U/Th disequilibrium by mass spectrometry with a plasma source were used for the dating of shells collected on the lower marine terrace to the west of Nice. The dates obtained (129 AE 30 ka) arranged with palaeoclimatic data indicate that this terrace corresponds to the MIS 5.5 (Tyrrhenian pro parte) and can be correlated with the level with Strombus bubonius located to the east of Nice. Thus, a profile of almost 70 km can be restored with precision from altimetric measurements of the deposits and from sedimentological indicators of the sea level. This profile passes from the tectonic foreland of Provence to the front of the Nice Alpine Range after skirting the Pliocene Var Basin. It thus crosses major structural limits. As expected, the deformation of the lower Tyrrhenian terrace consists of a west-to-east uplift with two boundaries: (1): the ''Var Fault'' located under the Pliocene Basin; and(2): the border fault of the Nice Range. On a regional scale, the uplift appears closely related to the Nice Range activity. It decreases to the east, in the Flyschs zone, then increases again up to the Apennines chain. To cite this article: M.

Lavaka represent a typical erosional landform in Madagascar. The chronology of their formation remains, however, under discussion. Our research focuses on the Ankarokaroka lavaka, a spectacular landform located in NW Madagascar (Ankarafantsika natural reserve), which is characterized by the presence of sandy units of regional extension at its top. The two main units correspond to white and red sands, and are closely associated with specific vegetations (dry dense forest for the white sands, savannah grasslands for the red sands). We applied a geochronological approach based on Optically Stimulated Luminescence (for the coversands) associated to radiocarbon dating performed on archaeological remains found at the contact between the sands and the lavaka. The combination of this approach with field work and sedimentological analyses makes it possible to show that the sands experienced a complex history, both in terms of sedimentation and post-sedimentary pedogenesis (podzolisation of the white sands, rubefaction of the red sands). The numerical ages furthermore indicate that the Ankarokaroka lavaka formed between 18.5±2.3 ka ago and the 14th century AD. The present study demonstrates that this lavaka has a climatic origin, and highlights the potential of OSL to date sediments associated with Madagascar lavaka