Over the last ten to twenty years, geological surveys all over the world have been entangled in a process of digitisation. Their paper archives, built over many decades, have largely been replaced by electronic databases. The systematic production of geological map sheets is being replaced by 3D subsurface modelling, the results of which are distributed electronically. In the Netherlands, this transition is both being accelerated and concluded by a new law that will govern management and utilisation of subsurface information. Under this law, the Geological Survey of the Netherlands has been commissioned to build a key register for the subsurface: a single national database for subsurface data and information, which Dutch government bodies are obliged to use when making policies or decisions that pertain to, or can be affected by the subsurface. This requires the Survey to rethink and redesign a substantial part of its operation: from data acquisition and interpretation to delivery. It has also helped shape our view on geological surveying in the future.

The key register, which is expected to start becoming operational in 2015, will contain vast quantities of subsurface data, as well as their interpretation into 3D models. The obligatory consultation of the register will raise user expectations of the reliability of all information it contains, and requires a strong focus on confidence issues. Building the necessary systems and meeting quality requirements is our biggest challenge in the upcoming years. The next step change will be towards building 4D models, which represent not only geological conditions in space, but also processes in time such as subsidence, anthropogenic effects, and those associated with global change.

A unique complex of multiphased Holocene drift sands and paleosols, with at least two lacustrine phases, was discovered during a major sanitation project in the Laarder Wasmeren area near Hilversum, the Netherlands. The complex could be studied in detail, highly facilitated by the excellent and large-scale exposure of the various deposits and soils. OSL dating was used to establish ages of the phases, where possible differentiating between time of deposition and time of burial by taking into account the potential effects of bioturbation. Pollen analysis served to reconstruct the vegetation during the various phases.

A first minor phase of aeolian activity already started before approx. 5,000 BC, followed around 4,000 BC by a second phase and a rather massive third phase around 3,000 BC. After a long phase of soil formation, the latest, massive drift sand phase started around the 14th to 15th century. It clearly represents the classic drift sand phase that started in the Late Middle Ages in the Netherlands. Sand drifting followed on soil forming phases during which the vegetation became increasingly dominated by ericaceous plants and culminated in heathlands. The first three aeolian phases and associated heathlands are much older than generally assumed for heathland and drift sand to occur in the Netherlands. Moreover, podzolisation was found to have started very early, true podzols already occurring before 4,000 BC.

Around 3,000 BC groundwater in the area reached a maximum altitude of about 230 cm +NAP, resulting in local open water in the area. This rise is probably linked to the development of the Dutch coastal area, where at that time peat accumulated and drainage was poor, inducing a rise of the groundwater level in ‘het Gooi’. This groundwater level fell later on, to never reach this altitude again. The Groot Wasmeer was formed by local stagnation on a slowly permeable podzol and already reached a level of 320-325 cm +NAP by 400 BC, which more or less equals its 20th century level.

The results demonstrate that earlier concepts on the occurrence and age of aeolian phases, podzols and heathland vegetations in the Netherlands are far too schematic, and that early, pre-agricultural cultures may already have had an impact on the stability of fragile cover sand landscapes, e.g. through burning. Results are in line with those from several contemporary studies on early prehistoric cultures and their impact in river dune areas in the Central and Eastern Netherlands.

Teeth of the small durophagous mosasaur Carinodens belgicus are known from Maastrichtian Atlantic-Tethyan deposits worldwide. The peculiar dentition of Carinodens inspired debate and speculation on its dietary niche ever since its first description. In this contribution, we describe the macro- and microwear pattern in five well-preserved isolated teeth, allowing further and independent evaluation of aspects of feeding behaviour and diet. Macroscopically, wear is concentrated on the apex and mesiodistal sides. Microwear was mapped using Scanning Electron Microscopy at several magnifications and can be characterised as scratches and pits. Coarse scratches were found to be the most common and pits were found to be the least common feature. Scratch orientation is primarily along the mesiodistal plane or in the labiolingual plane with an angle of ~130°. These microwear features can be explained either by oral processing or passive abrasion by sediments or food. As scratch width only indicates the minimum width of the abrading particle, the material causing the wear here could have ranged from silica-based silts to larger abrasives. However, in this case, abrasion by sediments might not explain this wear because of the biocalcarenitic nature of the type Maastrichtian sediments; siliciclastics are virtually absent. Therefore it is more likely that hard food particles, such as benthic organisms with hard exoskeletons, caused the wear on the enamel of Carinodens, or Carinodens ventured out to more sandy areas to forage as well. The mesiodistal and labiolingual direction of the microwear scratches might suggest that Carinodens showed more complexity in the use of its teeth than simple grasping, and that a gripping and pulling motion during feeding similar to that employed by modern varanids may have been the cause.

Boom Clay is considered as one of the potential host rocks for the disposal of high level and/or long lived radioactive waste in a geological formation in Belgium (Mol study site, Mol-1 borehole) and the Netherlands. The direct characterisation of the pore space is essential to help understand the transport properties of radionuclides in argillaceous materials.

This contribution aims to characterise and compare the morphology of the pore space in different Boom Clay samples, representing end-members with regard to mineralogy (i.e. clay content) and grain-size distribution of this formation. Broad ion beam (BIB) cross-sectioning is combined with SEM imaging of porosity and Mercury injection Porosimetry (MIP) to characterise the variability of the pore space in Boom Clay at the nm- to μm-scale within representative 2D areas and to relate microstructural observations to fluid flow properties of the bulk sample material. Segmented pores in 2D BIB surfaces are classified according to the mineralogy, generating representative datasets of up to 100,000 pores per cross-section.

Results show total SEM-resolved porosities of 10-20% and different characteristic mineral phase internal pore morphologies and intra-phase porosities.

Most of the nano-porosity resides in the clay matrix. In addition, in the silt-rich samples, larger inter-aggregate pores contribute to a major part of the resolved porosity. Pore-size distributions within the clay matrix suggest power-law behaviour of pore areas with exponents between 1.56-1.74. Mercury injection Porosimetry, with access to pore-throat diameters down to 3.6 nm, shows total interconnected porosities between 27-35 Vol.-%, and the observed hysteresis in the MIP intrusion vs. extrusion curves suggests relatively high pore-body to pore-throat ratios in Boom Clay. The difference between BIB-SEM visible and MIP measured porosities is explained by the resolution limit of the BIB-SEM method, as well as the limited size of the BIB-polished cross-section areas analysed. Compilation of the results provides a conceptual model of the pore network in fine- and coarse-grained samples of Boom Clay, where different mineral phases show characteristic internal porosities and pore morphologies and the overall pore space can be modelled based on the distribution of these mineral phases, as well as the grain-size distribution of the samples investigated.

A possible other explanation is given for one of the probably jellyfish remains published by Oosterink & Winkelhorst in this Journal. Comparison with Recent traces suggests one (fig. 12) might be a ‘scribe mark’.