First Record of the Belemnite Genus Hibolithes from Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous Turbidites from Malaysia

Discovery of the remains of belemnites referred to the Hibolithes sp. from the Jurassic–Cretaceous Pedawan Formation in Sarawak, on the island of Borneo(Malaysia) comprises four fragments of belemnite rostra. The specimens are characterized by multiple fractures and vein filling. Two fragments measuring about 130 mm are relatively intact, with only part of the alveolar region missing; a third piece represents the middle part of a rostrum, and the fourth specimen is too fragmentary to be assigned to any specific part of the rostrum. Based on specimen characteristics, a Tithonian–Hauterivian age is plausible. The sedimentary succession that yielded the belemnite material comprises thick shale that reflects the Te division of Bouma sequence. The occurrence of a Hibolithes taxon in the uppermost Jurassic to lowermost Cretaceous Pedawan Formation sediments in Borneo reflects a near to global palaeobiogeographic distribution of this genus.     

New insights from low-temperature thermochronology into the tectonic and geomorphologic evolution of the south-eastern Brazilian highlands and passive margin

The South Atlantic passive margin along the south-eastern Brazilian highlands exhibits a complex landscape,including a northern inselberg area and a southern elevated plateau,separated by the Doce River valley.This landscape is set on the Proterozoic to early Paleozoic rocks of the region that once was the hot core of the Aracuai orogen,in Ediacaran to Ordovician times.Due to the break-up of Gondwana and consequently the opening of the South Atlantic during the Early Cretaceous,those rocks of the Araquai orogen became the basement of a portion of the South Atlantic passive margin and related southeastern Brazilian highlands.Our goal is to provide a new set of constraints on the thermo-tectonic history of this portion of the south-eastern Brazilian margin and related surface processes,and to provide a hypothesis on the geodynamic context since break-up.To this end,we combine the apatite fission track(AFT)and apatite(U-Th)/He(AHe)methods as input for inverse thermal history modelling.All our AFT and AHe central ages are Late Cretaceous to early Paleogene.The AFT ages vary between 62 Ma and90 Ma,with mean track lengths between 12.2μm and 13.6μm.AHe ages are found to be equivalent to AFT ages within uncertainty,albeit with the former exhibiting a lesser degree of confidence.We relate this Late Cretaceous-Paleocene basement cooling to uplift with accelerated denudation at this time.Spatial variation of the denudation time can be linked to differential reactivation of the Precambrian structural network and differential erosion due to a complex interplay with the drainage system.We argue that posterior large-scale sedimentation in the offshore basins may be a result of flexural isostasy combined with an expansion of the drainage network.We put forward the combined compression of the Mid-Atlantic ridge and the Peruvian phase of the Andean orogeny,potentially augmented through the thermal weakening of the lower crust by the Trindade thermal anomaly,as a probable cause for the uplift.     

New Azhdarchid Pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Western Liaoning

A nearly complete skeleton with a lower jaw of pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous of western Liaoning is described and assigned to a new genus, Eoazhdarcho gen. nov.. The new genus is characterized by a relatively small size,the ratio of the length to width of the middle series cervical vertebrae approximately 3.5 and the ratio of humeral length to femoral length approximately 0.96. The humerus of Eoazhdarcho shows great resemblances to that of previously described Azhdarchidae, so it is assigned to the family Azhdarchidae.     

Numerical solution for dynamics of pneumatic DTH hammer system

The pneumatic down-the-hole(DTH) hammer is one of the efficient equipments used in medium hard to very hard rock drilling frield,and any change in its structure design affects all performance parameters of a pneuamtic DTH hammer directly.Yet,owing to the complexity of the dynamic interaction among the components in DTH hammer systems,until now it has been difficult to obtain reliable estimates of the design parameter affects.Thus providing an design parameter optimization and the layout of dynamics behavior of DTH hammer is of great importance.This paper documents the development and solution of a computational model for the dynamic response of a pneumatic DTH hammer.The model consists of rigid piston dynamics equation and chamber thermodynamics equations.The resulting model represented by a set of coupled nonlinear differential equations were computed in Visual C++ program.The developed solutions are used to perform a parametric study to illustrate the inffluence of the piston mass and supply pressure on the impact performance of DTH hammer system.     

High-Resolution Records of the Holocene Paleoenvironmental Variation Reflected by Carbonate and Its Isotopic Compositions in Bosten Lake and Response to Glacial Activities

Abstract: The Early Holocene paleoclimate in Bosten Lake on the northern margin of the Tarim Basin, southern Xinjiang, is reconstructed through an analysis of a 953 cm long core (BSTC2000) taken from Bosten Lake. Multiple proxies of this core, including the mineral components of carbonate, carbonate content, stable isotopic compositions of carbonate, Ca/Sr, TOC and C/N and C/S of organic matter, are used to reconstruct the climatic change since 8500 a B.P. The chronology model is made by nine AMS 14C ages of leaves, seeds and organic matter contained in two parallel cores. The climate was cold and wet during 8500 to 8100 a B.P. Temperature increased from 8100 to 6400 a B.P., the climate was warm and humid, and the lake expanded. The lake level was highest during this stage. Then from 6400 to 5100 a B.P., the climate became cold and the lake level decreased slightly. During the late mid-Holocene, the climate was hot and dry from 5100 to 3100 a B.P., but there was a short cold period during 4400 to 3800 a B.P. At this temporal interval, a mass of ice and snow melting water supplied the lake at the early time and made the lake level rise. The second highest lake level stage occurred during 5200 to 3800 a B.P. The climate was cool and wet during 3100 to 2200 a B.P., when the lake expanded with decreasing evaporation. The lake had the last short-term high level during 3100 to 2800 a B.P. After this short high lake level period, the lake shrank because of the long-term lower temperature and reduced water supply. From 2200 to 1200 a B.P., the climate was hot and dry, and the lake shrank greatly. Although the temperature decreased somewhat from 1200 a B.P. to the present, the climate was warm and dry. The lake level began to rise a little again, but it did not reach the river bed altitude of the Konqi River, an outflow river of the Bosten Lake.     

Results of an Intentional Introduction of Artemia sinica in the High-Altitude Tibetan Lake Dangxiong Co:On a Base of Surveys in 2011 and 2013

正1 Introduction The human population is projected to reach 9200million by 2050.A fundamental question for science is whether it is possible to increase food production to meet the demands of a human population of that magnitude.It’s possible only to increase an aquaculture production.Cultivation of fish/shrimp larvae is a bottleneck in a cultivation of the different organisms.Live food     

Interpreting Dual Laterolog Fracture Data in Fractured Carbonate Formation

The estimation of fractures is key to evaluating fractured carbonate reservoirs. It is difficult to evaluate this kind of reservoir because of its heterogeneously distributed fractures and anisotropy, A three-dimensional numerical model was used to simulate the responses of the dual laterolog （DLL） in a fractured formation based on a macro-isotropic anisotropic model, Accordingly, a fast fracture computing method was developed. First, the apparent conductivity of the DLL is linearly related to the porosity of the fracture and the conductivity of pore fluid. Second, the amplitude difference of the deep and shallow apparent resistivity logs is mainly dependent on the dip angle of the fracture. Then the response of the DLL to a formation with dip angle fractures is approximately depicted as a function of the bulk resistivity of the rock, the porosity of the fractures and the conductivity of fracture fluid. This function can be used to compute the porosity of fracture quickly. The actual data show that the fracture parameters determined by the DLL closely coincide with the formation micro imager log.     

Finite-element 3D modeling of stress patterns around a dipping fault

Stresses in a block around a dipping fracture simulating a damage zone of a fault are reconstructed by finite-element modeling. A fracture corresponding to a fault of different lengths, with its plane dipping at different angles, is assumed to follow a lithological interface and to experience either compression or shear. The stress associated with the destruction shows an asymmetrical pattern with different distances from the highest stress sites to the fault plane in the hanging and foot walls. As the dip angle decreases,the high-stress zone becomes wider in the hanging wall but its width changes negligibly in the foot wall.The length of the simulated fault and the deformation type affect only the magnitude of maximum stress,which remains asymmetrical relative to the fault plane. The Lh/Lfratio, where Lhand Lfare the widths of high-stress zones in the hanging and foot walls of the fault, respectively, is inversely proportional to the fault plane dip. The arithmetic mean of this ratio over different fault lengths in fractures subject to compression changes from 0.29 at a dip of 80°to 1.67 at 30°. In the case of shift displacement, ratios are increasing to 1.2 and 2.94, respectively.Usually they consider vertical fault planes and symmetry in a damage zone of faults. Following that assumption may cause errors in reconstructions of stress and fault patterns in areas of complex structural setting. According geological data, we know the structures are different and asymmetric in hanging and foot walls of fault. Thus, it is important to quantify zones of that asymmetry. The modeling results have to be taken into account in studies of natural faults, especially for practical applications in seismic risk mapping, engineering geology, hydrogeology, and tectonics.     

Evaluation of the frequency of micronucleus in epithefial cells of children exposed to arsenic and heavy metals pollution in a mining area of Mexico

Mining industry is one of the most important economical activities of Latin America, where As, Pb and Cd are commonly associated with the extraction of precious and base metals. Mining activities become a source of contamination if control measures are not adapted to avoid the pollution of soils by these potentially toxic elements （PTE） for the human, because they have the capacity to produce damage to the DNA generating a genomic instability in the individual and this directly can lead to the development of chronic diseases like cancer. The considered population of greater risk is the infantile since they have an exceptional vulnerability to the acute or chronic effects of environmental toxics and in addition have a higher susceptibility to these PTE compared with the adults. For that reason, it is assumed that the infantile population exposed to soil contaminated by the mixture of As, Pb and Cd, has damage in the DNA of its cells and this provokes a greater susceptibility to develop neoplasics processes or other environmental diseases. Individual sensitivity to the cytogenetics effects produced by the polluting agents or their metabolites is based on the differences in the magnitude of the repair systems induction, reason why it is necessary to determine the genotoxicity in exposed children by means of the evaluation of a damage biomarker that allows to establish a biological meaning to predict the adverse effects in health.