内容摘要：Lib Dem Treasury spokeswoman Sarah Olney said: "The Conservative Party has hammered pensioners with years of unfair tax hikes and broken their word on the triple lock.

Lib Dem Treasury spokeswoman Sarah Olney said: "The Conservative Party has hammered pensioners with years of unfair tax hikes and broken their word on the triple lock.

Researchers at the University of Glasgow documented a new "rapid anthropoclastic rock cycle", which mimics natural cycles but involves human material over accelerated timescales.They warn the development of rock around industrial waste sites could have negative impacts on ecosystems as well as land planning.

Their findings came from analysis of a two-kilometre (1.25-mile) stretch of slag deposit, which was home to iron and steel-making foundries during the 19th and 20th centuries.The deposits have formed cliffs of waste material which are being eroded by coastal waves and tides, and the team carried out analysis after noticing irregular formations in the cliffs.Dr Amanda Owen, one of the study's authors, said: "For a couple of hundred years, we've understood the rock cycle as a natural process that takes thousands to millions of years.

"What's remarkable here is that we've found these human-made materials being incorporated into natural systems and becoming lithified - essentially turning into rock - over the course of decades instead."It challenges our understanding of how a rock is formed, and suggests that the waste material we've produced in creating the modern world is going to have an irreversible impact on our future."

Laboratory tests helped researchers determine that Derwent Howe's slag materials contain deposits of calcium, iron, magnesium and manganese.

These elements are highly chemically reactive, which is key to causing the accelerated process of rock formation.Acting chair of court Tricia Bey said without forthcoming financial support from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) the university will run out of money by the end of June.

Last week, the university announced that 632 jobs would be cut, about one-fifth of the workforce.It said that factors including a "severe drop" in international student recruitment and an increase in National Insurance contributions were to blame for the deficit.

However, it added that internal factors including "inadequate financial discipline and control" and "poor capital planning and investment decisions" had also contributed to the situation.The University and College Union (UCU) Scotland said staff were being made to pay the price for "egregious management failure".