Western Basque Research Articles

Long term wave load trends against offshore monopile structures: A case study in the Bay of Biscay

This study examines the trend in wave parameters over available annual records in the Bay of Biscay, where EWTEC2023 is being hosted. There have been various renewable offshore energy projects in the 21st century in this region,such as the OWC (Oscillating Water Column) plant in Mutriku [1], or BiMEP (Biscay Marine Energy Platform)[2],the infrastructure for testing ocean devices in Armintza, where better characterization of the wave resource could helpto provide design information to developing wave energy technology. Other studies [3] have shown that wave heighthas increased in recent decades, as well as the frequency at which extreme waves occur, which affects the fatigueexperienced by deployed devices. The aim is to study the effect of the maximal wave height, its frequency, and loadson monopile cylindrical structures, which are basic component structures for wave energy converters and offshorewind turbines. The effect of this evolution, against these generic structures in offshore wind and wave energy devices,is studied using the 20th century reanalysis ERA20 (1900-2010) of ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-RangeWeather Forecasts) [3]. A significant increase in two forces, drag forces and inertial forces, of up to 15%, is computedover 110 years at a gridpoint near the Western Basque coast, which constitutes a strong positive slope that can be alsoassociated with climate change, and has strong implications for the design of new marine renewable energy technology.

Sibilant mergers in 18th-century Basque: A quantitative study

Conservative Basque dialects distinguish apical and laminal alveolar sibilants in the fricative and affricate series. This paper analyses the changes this system was undergoing in the Central Basque variety of San Sebastián in the 18th century: (1) the “Western merger”: neutralisation of the laminal and apical fricative sibilants in favour of the latter and the neutralisation of the laminal and apical alveolar affricates in favour of the former, which started in Western Basque and spread to some Central varieties, and (2) the “Central merger”, a more recent development, limited to some central dialects, where both fricative and affricate alveolar sibilants are realised as laminals. A generalised linear mixed-effects model was fitted to the data extracted from an early-18th-century manuscript which shows evidence of both patterns of merger. We propose that sibilant mergers were still in progress in the variety and time period under study and that they are interrelated processes. The Western merger started as a phonetically-conditioned sound change due to coarticulation to a following consonant. As this neutralisation extended to other positions, a hypercorrective change was initiated in some Central varieties, which eventually resulted in a mirror-image process, namely a change from apical to laminal fricatives.

Historical implications of the Western Basque Tonal Accent [1975

Jacobsen, Jr., William H., eta José Ignacio Hualde. 2022. «Historical Implications of the Western Basque Tonal Accent [1975]». Anuario Del Seminario De Filología Vasca "Julio De Urquijo" 54 (1-2):283-303. https://doi.org/10.1387/asju.23472.

Reactivation of a hyperextended rift system: The Basque–Cantabrian Pyrenees case

AbstractThis contribution investigates the role of a hyperextended rift system in the formation of the Basque–Cantabrian Pyrenees by discussing their present‐day architecture as well as the inherited rift template. Moreover, this work attempts to decipher the onset of reactivation of a hyperextended system and to discuss the related processes during collision. To carry out this study, two regional, crustal‐scale cross‐sections are presented that provide geological and geophysical information and interpretations across the Central and Western Basque–Cantabrian Pyrenees. Moreover, the two sections are restored back to the Cenomanian and Barremian, corresponding to the end of two independent rift stages respectively. The two sections document different structural styles observed along the orogenic belt. The Central section, involving the Iberian and European plates, shows a thin‐skinned structural style, where the Upper Triassic salt acted as a decoupling level between the sedimentary cover and the underlying basement during both extension and reactivation. The Western section, by contrast, crosses only the Iberian plate (i.e., intra‐plate section) and displays a hybrid situation showing both thin‐ and thick‐skinned structural styles that were conditioned by the irregular distribution of Triassic salt. Extensional deformation was localised in the north (i.e., Bay of Biscay) and less important in the south. Despite compressional reactivation, the northern part of the Western section preserves its rift template, which provides key insights to restore the internal part of the Central section. In contrast to the Western section, the Central section shows stacked depocenters, resulting from overprinted Mesozoic rift events that had a first order control on the subsequent reactivation. This study corroborates the importance of rift inheritance during the onset of convergence by reactivating the most distal and weak part of the rift system (i.e., serpentinised mantle) before starting the collision phase. A key learning is that the understanding of the nature and distribution of decoupling levels at a crustal scale is fundamental to reconstruct the structural evolution during the formation and reactivation of a hyperextended rift system.

Deba Ibarreko euskara / The Basque of the Deba Valley

Deba ibarreko euskara da aztergaia. Mendebaleko euskalkiaren barruan kokatu ohi da arrazoi osoz, baina azkenaldian Bizkaian sortutako berrikuntza gehienak ez dira hara zabaldu; bai, ostera, Gipuzkoan sortutako batzuk. Gertakari horiek erakutsi ondoren, eskualde honetako bereizgarriak aurkezten dira eta, amaitzeko, bertako hiru eremuetakoak: Debabarrena (Mutriku, Mendaro eta Elgoibar), Deba ibarreko erdigunea (Eibar, Ermua, Soraluze, Elgeta, Bergara eta Antzuola) eta Debagoiena (Oñati, Arrasate, Aretxabaleta, Eskoriatza, Leintz-Gatzaga eta Aramaio).

From cultural showcases to public diplomacy agents: Basque-American festivals in the United States

ABSTRACTBasque festivals in the United States have a long history. Among the festivals organized, there are festivals with different objectives. The objective of the first festivals was to unite the Basque community in the United States, as some Basques were from the Spanish side of the Basque Country and others from the French side, the objective was to unite all of them as Basques to a one-time two day festival to celebrate together and meet each other. The Western Basque Festival organized in 1959 in Sparks is an example of this. Annual Basque National Festival in Elko also wanted to have an internal joint celebration: still not focused on inviting non-Basques, but yes promoting positive image to Elko Basques. Inter-community Basque festivals have a history of over 100 years with Basques in New York in the early 1900s and western Basques since the 1920s. After that, ones Basques were united and almost settled in the United States, they started organizing festivals with another objective: invite the non Basque public and be accepted in the American society. The Boise Jaialdi Festival and Smithsonian Folklife Festival break the mould by specifically inviting the non-Basque public. What we would like to show with this research is how Basques and Basque American festivals, thanks to Public Relation activities as the festivals organized in the United States, have become public diplomacy agents and help in the relations between the United States and the Basque Country.

The Iberian Plate: myth or reality?

The plate tectonics theory generally leads us to consider that Iberia was an independent plate separated from Europe by the North Pyrenean Fault (NPF). The NPF has been commonly interpreted as a transform fault associated with a huge counterclockwise transverse and rotational movement that allowed the opening of the Bay of Biscay and the relative eastward motion of Iberia during the Mesozoic. According to some interpretations, this movement may have generated an interplate gap several hundreds of km wide, which led to the creation of an oceanic crust during the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous. However, field studies recently carried out in the Pyrenees do not support these interpretations. The North Pyrenean Fault (NPF) of Tertiary age is observed in the central and eastern Pyrenees, where pioneering researchers defined it as separating the North Pyrenean Zone from the Axial Zone. However, this fault cannot be identified in the western part of the range to the west of the Ossau valley. Consequently, the geodynamic evolution of Iberia has always been dependent on Europe, especially during the failed oceanic rifting in the Mid-Cretaceous. Indeed, during this period, a central zone of crustal thinning occupied by turbiditic basins separated the European from the Iberian continental crust, with a very localized mantle exhumation found only in the Mauleon basin. Therefore, far from being an interplate range, the Pyrenees can neither be considered as an intraplate unit. We can define this orogenic belt as resulting from the “Tertiary tectonic inversion of a Mid-Cretaceous rift system”. According to this new interpretation, Iberia would not have been an isolated plate but represented an unstable, outlying part of Europe. Rather than displaying the features of a rigid lithospheric unit with well-defined boundaries, Iberia grouped together different crustal blocks undergoing specific movements at particular times. During the Mesozoic, normal, reverse or strike-slip displacements along their boundary faults generated several en échelon basins (Bilbao, Logroño, Soria and Maestrazgo in Spain; Parentis, Arzacq and the North Pyrenean Flysch Trough in France) whose diachronous development accounts very well for the opening of the Bay of Biscay and the relative W-E sinistral movement of the Iberian crust with respect to the European crust. In this way, we note a more marked paleogeographic shift in the western Basque region than in eastern Catalonia. Therefore, the Pyrenees were not generated by an “interplate collision”, but merely reflect the confrontation of two distended but continuous continental domains during the Tertiary, leading to the incipient underthrusting of the Iberian crust under the European crust. This zone of confrontation/convergence does not correspond in any way to the NPF, but rather comprises a complex imbricated structure revealed by a jump in the Moho, both in the Pyrenees and in the Cantabrian belt, which has recently become known as the “North Iberian Fault”.

Diagenetic evolution of the upper Cretaceous limestone and sandstone exhumed reservoirs in the western Basque–Cantabrian Basin, North Spain

The Basque–Cantabrian Basin (NE Spain) has been considered one of the most interesting areas for hydrocarbon exploration in the Iberian Peninsula since the 60th to 70th of last century. This basin is characterized by the presence of numerous outcrops of tar sands closely associated with fractures and Triassic diapirs. The aims of this work is to establish the diagenetic evolution of the Upper Cretaceous reservoir rocks with special emphasis in the emplacement of oil and their impact on reservoir quality. The studied rocks are constituted of carbonates and sandstones that contain massive quantities of bitumen filling vugs and fractures.Petrographic results indicate that the carbonate rocks from Maestu outcrops are bioclastic grainstones and wackestones, whereas the tar sandstones from Atauri and Loza outcrops are dominated by quartzarenites and subordinated subarkoses. The paragenetic sequence of the main diagenetic phases and processes include, pyrite, bladed and drusy calcite cement, calcite overgrowths, silicification of bioclasts and microcrystalline rhombic dolomite cement, and first stage of oil emplacement, blocky calcite cement, coarse crystalline calcite cement, calcitized dolomite, calcite veins, saddle dolomite and stylolites filled by the second phase of oil entrance. Together with the above mentioned diagenetic alterations, the arenites are affected by early kaolinitization of feldspars and the scarce formation of clay rim and epimatrix of illite. All sandstones and dolomitized carbonate rocks show high intercrystalline and intergranular porosity which is full by biodegraded hydrocarbons (solid bitumen). The biodegradation affects alkanes, isoprenoids and partially hopanes and steranes saturated hydrocarbons. Aromatics hydrocarbons, like naphthalenes, phenanthrenes, dibenzothiophenes and triaromatics are also affected by biodegradation. Results indicate that the first HC emplacement corresponds to early stage of calcite and dolomite cementation, and the second and more important emplacement is related to fracturation processes resulting in the formation of excellent reservoirs.

On the Analysis of Tone in Mee (Ekari, Ekagi, Kapauku)

In this paper we present the tonal properties of Mee, a Wissel Lakes Papuan language known also as Ekari, Ekagi, and Kapauku. Since the previous accounts in the literature have been highly inadequate, allowing contradictory claims of tone, pitch-accent, and/or stress, we document the word-prosodic system and show that it is quite simple: Mee words can have a pitch drop from H to L either after the first mora or the second mora of the word. Corresponding to this simplicity, however, is a wide range of compatible interpretations. We consider how several analyses fare with respect to noun tone patterns, as well as verb tones, which are partly determined by the verb root, partly by inflectional features. From a typological perspective, the Mee system falls into the same category as Tokyo Japanese, Somali, Western Basque, and Mayo, which have also been subject to differing interpretations.

Effect of sea level extremes on the western Basque coast during the 21st century

CR Climate Research Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsSpecials CR 51:237-248 (2012) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/cr01069 Effect of sea level extremes on the western Basque coast during the 21st century Marta Marcos1,*, Guillem Chust2, Gabriel Jordà1, Ainhoa Caballero3 1Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (IMEDEA–UIB-CSIC), Miquel Marquès 21, 07190 Esporles, Spain 2AZTI-Tecnalia, Marine Research Division, Txatxarramendi ugartea z/g, 48395 Sukarrieta, Spain 3AZTI-Tecnalia, Marine Research Division, Herrera kaia portualdea z/g, 20110 Pasaia, Spain *Email: marta.marcos@uib.es ABSTRACT: Rising global sea level increases the vulnerability of coastal regions to storm surge flooding. The impact of extreme high waters resulting from the combination of tidal oscillations and changes in mean sea level and in storm surges during the 21st century has been explored in the Bizkaian coast (northern Spain). Mean sea level variations due to temperature changes were estimated from an ensemble mean of global atmosphere-ocean general circulation models in the Bay of Biscay under A1B and A2 climate change scenarios. Changes in the frequency and intensity of storm surges were obtained from the output of a barotropic regional ocean model forced by greenhouse gas concentrations during 2000−2100. The storm surge model was calibrated using available tide gauge observations. Based on the above estimations, return levels of total sea level extremes are expected to increase by up to 40 cm with respect to present-day values. The likely impacts of resulting floods on coastal and estuarine habitats of the Bizkaian coast were assessed applying the return levels to a high precision light detection and ranging (LiDAR) based Digital Terrain Model. Results show that during the second half of the 21st century up to 202 ha are under risk of flooding, of which 50% correspond to urbanized land including industrial and residential areas. This represents a more than 3-fold increase compared to the area at risk from present sea level extremes. This study provides insight into both regional sea level variability and local flood-risks, and thus provides inputs for the formulation of effective mid-term adaptation measures to sea level extremes. KEY WORDS: Sea level · Extremes · Climate change · Storm surges · LiDAR · Coastal impacts Full text in pdf format PreviousNextCite this article as: Marcos M, Chust G, Jordà G, Caballero A (2012) Effect of sea level extremes on the western Basque coast during the 21st century. Clim Res 51:237-248. https://doi.org/10.3354/cr01069 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in CR Vol. 51, No. 3. Online publication date: March 20, 2012 Print ISSN: 0936-577X; Online ISSN: 1616-1572 Copyright © 2012 Inter-Research.

Seaweed assemblage changes in the eastern Cantabrian Sea and their potential relationship to climate change

Rising sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) over the last three decades in the south-eastern part of the Bay of Biscay could be affecting phytobenthic assemblage distributions. This study assesses recent changes in species abundance and diversity along the western Basque coast by studying 18 locations in summer 1991 and in 2008. There were substantial changes in the structure of subtidal vegetation between the two surveys: 1) an increase in coralline algae; 2) changes in the distribution patterns of the canopy species; 3) disappearance of kelps; 4) increases in warm-water species, mainly morphologically simple forms; 5) introduction and expansion of non-indigenous species, and 6) increases in species richness and diversity. These results are consistent with the rise detected in SST, particularly in summer when SST was found to have risen by as much as 1°C from 1980 to 2008. Furthermore, two extreme warming events occurred in the summers of 2003 and 2006. However, some biological shifts cannot be explained by warmer waters alone. Only limited data are available on changes in nutrient concentrations and water transparency, but these factors are also thought to be involved in the biological changes detected.

On the Analysis of Tone in Mee (Ekari, Ekagi, Kapauku)

In this paper we present the tonal properties of Mee, a Wissel Lakes Papuan language known also as Ekari, Ekagi, and Kapauku. Since the previous accounts in the literature have been highly inadequate, allowing contradictory claims of tone, pitch-accent, and/or stress, we document the word-prosodic system and show that it is quite simple: Mee words can have a pitch drop from H to L either after the first mora or the second mora of the word. Corresponding to this simplicity, however, is a wide range of compatible interpretations. We consider how several analyses fare with respect to noun tone patterns, as well as verb tones, which are partly determined by the verb root, partly by inflectional features. From a typological perspective, the Mee system falls into the same category as Tokyo Japanese, Somali, Western Basque, and Mayo, which have also been subject to differing interpretations.

Is Basque morphologically ergative?

Although Basque’s case-marking pattern has conventionally been regarded as ergative, I argue in this article that it is not straightforward to determine whether this pattern is actually ergative or rather semantically-based. Several factors make this one a complex issue. Perhaps the most important factor among these, and one which has gone largely unnoticed in the literature, is the fact that there are clear dialectal differences regarding the behavior of lexically-simple unergative verbs. Another complication comes from establishing the specific contrast underlying the putative semantic split among Basque intransitives. With these questions in mind, I propose that the case-marking system of Western Basque should be considered semantically aligned instead of ergative. This system is based on a contrast patientive / non-patientive. Conversely, Eastern and Central Basque may be considered to have an ergative case-marking system, but one which differs in some respects from that of the most typical ergative languages and which is not too different from a semantic system.

Seasonal movements of the Schreibers' bat, Miniopterus schreibersii, in the northern Iberian Peninsula

The movements of the Schreibers' bat, Miniopterus schreibersii, in the regions of Navarre, La Rioja, and the western Basque Country were studied on a seasonal basis by means of ringing and recapture data. A total of 3014 bats were ringed in the study area, with recaptures accounting for 198. We found only three breeding colonies and no hibernacula in the study area. Distances between capture sites averaged 77 km (range 0–258 km) and varied seasonally. Distances between spring colonies and between autumn colonies were the shortest, whereas distances between spring and breeding colonies and between breeding and autumn colonies were the longest, as many bats moved to and from nursery roosts located outside of and far from the study area. The bats in the study area are part of a larger population that, at a minimum, extends over the central northern half of the Iberian Peninsula. Presumably individuals from different subpopulations mixed in the nursery roosts, returning to their respective quarters from autumn to spring. Both males and females joined the common breeding colonies, although a high proportion of males remained sedentary.

Robert Laxalt: The Voice of the Basques in American Literature by David Río

BOOK R E VIE W S 3 2 9 its soundtrack identified in the opening credits as “based on American folk songs” (49); The Searchers and its fusion of self-consciously American classical music derived from Roy Harris, Aaron Copland, and the guitar-strumming Sons of the Pioneers; and as conclusion, Cheyenne Autumn (1964), for which Ford insisted on researching authentic Cheyenne songs and chants. He seemed increasingly to resist the trend toward a symphonic West, hence his scores were often “something of a battlefield” (17); one studio executive notes in a letter to a perhaps miffed Mr. Miller that “Mr. Ford leans to not too professional singing, and would like to utilize colored voices” (191). But in the final cut, Cheyenne songs appeared in only six minutes of soundtrack. Late in his career, it seems, “studios ... [had] turned a deaf ear” to Ford and his music (196). Robert Laxalt: The Voice of the Basques in American Literature. By David Rio. Translated by Kristin Addis. Foreword by William A. Douglass. Reno: Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada, Reno, 2007. 190 pages, $24-95. Reviewed by Cheryll Glotfelty University of Nevada, Reno The study of western American literature has embraced multiculturalism in its choice of texts and critical approaches. However, one ethnic group contin­ ues to elude sustained critical attention: the Basques, who immigrated to the American West in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, taking up jobs low on the totem pole of desirability and status—to wit, sheepherding. Author Robert Laxalt gave Basques a voice in his classic work Sweet Promised Land (1957), a poignant story that opens with the memorable sentence, “My father was a sheepherder, and his home was the hills” (1). Sweet Promised Land inspired the first Western Basque Festival in Sparks, Nevada, in 1959, which in turn spawned similar Basque festivals popular throughout the West today. Laxalt, who died in 2001, published seventeen books, founded and directed the University of Nevada Press, and helped establish the Basque Studies Program at the University of Nevada, Reno. His books, set in Nevada and in the Basque country straddling France and Spain, explore themes of immigration, ethnic identity, family, community, place, and traditional Basque culture. Laxalt’s works received strong reviews often comparing him to Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck. Two of his books were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and one was named a notable book of the year by the American Library Association. Despite Laxalt’s literary achievements, he has been curiously absent from critical studies of American and western American literature. The critical dis­ covery of Laxalt and of Basque American literature is being spearheaded from Spain, thanks to the work of David Rio, a professor of North American litera­ ture at the Universidad del Pais Vasco (University of the Basque Country). 3 3 0 W e s t e r n A m e r ic a n L it e r a t u r e F a l l 2 0 0 8 Rio’s Robert Laxalt: La voz de los vascos en la literatura norteamericana (2002) is the first book-length study of Laxalt’s writing, recently translated into English and published in the United States to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Sweet Promised Land. Only two of Laxalt’s books are available in Basque-language editions, and only a few have been translated into Spanish. Hence, Rio’s study is of necessity descriptive, offering plot summaries, literary analyses, and biographical infor­ mation. Particular strengths include Rio’s extensive research, which includes the Robert Laxalt papers at the University of Nevada, Reno; English-, Spanish-, and Basque-language articles and reviews; and interviews that Rio conducted in the 1990s with Laxalt, his family members, and close colleagues. Rio’s readings are sensitive and skillful, adept at interpreting motifs of initiation, contextualizing immigrant identity, and revealing the aesthetics of some of Laxalt’s more kaleidoscopic texts. At the same time, Rio’s willingness to be critical has to overcome his friendship with Laxalt, and his focus on the role played by Basques in Laxalt’s stories inevitably obscures other elements of Laxalt’s multi­ faceted work, including his critically acclaimed novel...

On egin: do-support and VP focus in Central and Western Basque

This paper develops an account of do-support in VP focus constructions in Central and Western Basque (CWB) dialects. In particular, this paper argues that CWB dialects, along with Korean, form a class of do-support languages whose dummy verb insertion mechanism differs slightly from that of English and Monnese. In all four of these languages, the dummy verb occupies a position that is, in marked environments, inaccessible to the verb. However, in Korean and CWB, unlike in English and Monnese, the verb's inability to raise to value this feature is not due to its inflectional poverty, but rather because it must bear a nominalizing infinitival affix for independent reasons; this nominal infinitive may not bear aspectual morphology, and a dummy verb is merged to do so instead. Moreover, Basque do-support is not a last-resort phenomenon as in Chomsky's classic analysis of English do-support (Chomsky 1957). That is, the unavailability of do-support in non-verb focalization constructions is not due to competition with a more economical alternative, but rather is independently excluded. This approach avoids a violation of the Inclusiveness Condition inherent in economy-based approaches to do-support that generate the dummy verb in the computational component.

The relationship of environmental factors to the structure and distribution of subtidal seaweed vegetation of the western Basque coast (N Spain)

Subtidal vegetation distribution patterns in relation to environmental conditions (pollution, wave exposure, sedimentation, substratum slope and depth) were studied along the western Basque coast, northern Spain, by applying canonical correspondence analysis and log–linear regressions. A total of 90 species of macrophytes were recorded by systematic sampling along 21 transects. Mesophyllum lichenoides and Cystoseira baccata were the most abundant (accounting for 47% of the overall algal cover). Gelidium sesquipedale, Pterosiphonia complanata, Zanardinia prototypus, Codium decorticatum and Asparagopsis armata ( Falkenbergia phase) were other macrophytes with significant cover. Ordination analysis indicates that the five environmental variables explored account between them for 52% of the species data variance. Pollution, sedimentation and wave exposure were the principal factors explaining differences in flora composition and abundance (24, 14 and 12% of the explained variance, respectively). Log–linear regressions and canonical correspondence analyses reveal that C. baccata and G. sesquipedale exhibit a negative relationship with pollution, while sediment loading negatively affects G. sesquipedale, and C. baccata cannot stand high wave exposure levels. In contrast, P. complanata and C. decorticatum show a positive relationship with pollution and can bear high levels of sedimentation and wave exposure. M. lichenoides and Z. prototypus present a wide tolerance range for all these factors. Macroalgal cover, species richness and diversity remain practically constant from unpolluted to slightly polluted sites, but they decrease sharply under moderately polluted conditions. In the same way, algal cover decreases as sediment loading increases, but diversity and species richness show the highest values at intermediate levels of sedimentation. In relation to wave exposure, maximum algal cover was achieved at very exposed habitats whereas diversity and species richness were higher under semi-exposed conditions.

On the Accented/Unaccented Distinction in Western Basque and the Typology of Accentual Systems

Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Aspect (2000)

On system-driven sound change: Accent shift in Markina Basque

Regular sound change has been seen as primarily involving the phonologization of fast speech reductions (Browman and Goldstein, 1991; Mowrey and Pagliuca, 1995; Bybee, 1997) or being otherwise motivated by phonetic tendencies (Donegan, 1993). In this paper I argue that systemically-based sound changes lacking phonetic motivation need to be given greater attention as they offer crucial evidence for the organization of the mental lexicon. One area where system-based changes are particularly prominent and clear is in the diachronic restructuring of accentual systems. Here I examine a situation in western Basque where the acquisition of a phonetically-based sound change has triggered the application of other ‘compensatory’ system-driven changes, giving rise to an extensive restructuration of the accentual system.

Cenomanian events in the deep western Basque Basin: the Leioa section

Analysis of the microfaunas (foraminifera, ostracods) and the stable isotope values (δ13C, δ18O) of the Leioa section, as representative of the deep Basque Basin, has allowed us to propose a detailed palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of this region during the Cenomanian, as well as to register global chronostratigraphic reference levels to facilitate interregional correlations. During the Cenomanian, part of the basin, the Plentzia Trough, was occupied by intermediate water masses, as deduced by the relative percentages of planktonic (Rotalipora) and benthonic foraminifera. A noticeable change is observed at the middle-late Cenomanian transition: the replacement of the dominance of keeled (rota-liporids) by incipiently-keeled (dicarinellids, praeglobotruncanids) planktonic foraminifera, indicative of the new influence of the upper intermediate waters. The temporary effect of shallow waters is deduced in one interval of the latest early Cenomanian and two more of the middle Cenomanian, as indicated by the dominance of globular planktonic foraminifera (hedbergellids). These water masses were moderately to strongly hypoxic (<4 to <2 ml/l of disolved oxygen) after the ostracod platycopid signal and benthonic foraminiferal hypoxic indicators. The dysaerobia may have been particulary strong (almost anoxia?) during part of the middle Cenomanian. Micronutrient availability was also restricted during several intervals of the middle Cenomanian, as indicated by the sudden decrease in the species diversity of the calcitic benthonics during the period when increased trends of the δ13C isotopic signals are observed. The combination of both hypoxia and nutrient depletion produced drastic changes in the microfaunal assemblages, with emigrations and local extinctions, showing benthonic perturbations from the time indicated by the base of theRotalipora reicheliZone onwards. From the beginning until the end of the middle Cenomanian, eleven of these perturbations are recorded as regional bioevents, using as bioevent-markers, intervals where microfauna was absent (including benthic-free intervals, B-FI; benthonic calcitic-free intervals, BC-FI; and ostracod-free intervals, O-FI). These changes led to the renewal of the microfaunas; benthonic foraminifera renewed their specific stocks during the early to early middle Cenomanian, with planktonic foraminifera and ostracods undergoing renewal at the end of the middle Cenomanian. Isotope values of δ18O and δ13C are consistent with the palaeoenvironmental changes detected by the microfaunas; their maximum and minimum shifts coincide with the bioevents. The double-peaked positive shift of δ13C for the mid-Cenomanian of northwest Europe (Jenkynset al., 1994; Paulet al., 1994a) has been recognized in this series of the Basque Basin. The palaeoenvironmental perturbations deduced in the Cenomanian of the Leioa section are attributed essentially to palaeoceanographic changes, where intermediate water masses profoundly influenced the planktonic and benthonic ecosystems. The influence of other local causes, such as volcanic activity at that time, or tectonics between the Iberian and European plates, are more difficult to prove. Several of the bioevents defined in the middle Cenomanian of this basin could probably be global in nature, and thus may be useful for establishing interregional correlations.