Coarse-grained sediment gravity flow facies in a large supraglacial lake

Near Williams Lake, in the central interior of British Columbia, the Fraser River exposes long sections of late Pleistocene glaciolacustrine sediments selectively preserved within a bedrock trough. The dominant facies types are thick, normally graded gravels and sands that occupy steeply dipping multistorey channels up to 300 m wide and several tens of metres deep. Channels appear to have been simultaneously cut and filled by high density turbidity currents in a glacial lake floored by stagnant ice. Fining upward sediment gravity flow sequences up to 50 m thick may be the product of quasi-continuous ‘surging’ turbidity flows triggered by catastrophic meltwater discharges into the trough or retrogressive failure of ice-cored sediments. Large-scale post-depositional deformation structures, such as synclinal folds, normal faults, sedimentary dyke swarms and dewatering structures, record gravitational foundering of sediment and pore-water expulsion caused by the melt of underlying glacier ice. Melting of buried ice masses along the floor of the trough appears to have controlled the flow paths of turbidity currents by producing sub-basins within the overlying sediment pile. An idealized model of ‘supraglacial’ lacustrine sedimentation is developed that may be applicable to other glaciated areas with similar bedrock topography.     

A palaeo-ice stream of the British Ice Sheet in eastern Scotland

Terrestrial and marine subglacial landforms in eastern Scotland are used to evaluate previously unsubstantiated notions of ice streaming within the British Ice Sheet (BIS) in this area during the last glacial cycle. Employing both regional and local-scale data sets, we describe onshore landform-sediment assemblages, offshore geomorphology and stratigraphy, and reconstructed palaeo-ice flow patterns. The results and their glaciological significance are discussed in the context of stratigraphical and geomorphological frameworks established by earlier workers, and are compared with modelled reconstructions for the BIS in this area. We conclude that the Main Late Devensian ice sheet in eastern Scotland hosted a zone of fast-flowing ice at least 100 km long and 45 km wide, akin to a contemporary ice stream. This sector - the Strathmore Ice Stream - flowed through a combination of basal sliding on meltwater-lubricated rigid beds and by deforming unconsolidated basal substrates.     

Deficiencies of sheets and tiles: building sheetless databases

A geographic information system (GIS) provides access to information for potentially large areas. Traditionally, cartographers have divided maps into sheets for technical reasons. While such units survive in digital databases, they serve a different function. The 'tile' system has limitations and deficiencies which must be understood by software developers and users. Remedies to the problems of tiles provide a basis for specifying the requirements for sheetlessness. A truly sheetless database depends on indexing algorithms, reviewed in a companion paper.     

Oligo–Miocene seagrass‐influenced carbonate sedimentation along a temperate marine palaeoarchipelago,Padthaway Ridge,South Australia

Oligo–Miocene carbonates associated with the Padthaway Ridge form the southern margin of the Murray Basin, South Australia. The carbonates are a thin, somewhat condensed succession of echinoid and bryozoan‐rich limestones that record accumulation in the complex of islands and seaways and progressive burial of the Ridge through time. The rocks are grainy to muddy bioclastic packstones, grainstones and floatstones, composed of infaunal echinoderms, bryozoans, coralline algae and benthic foraminifera, with lesser contributions from molluscs and serpulid worms. Locally as much as half of these skeletal components are Fe‐stained, relict grains that imbue the lithologies with a conspicuous yellow to orange hue. This variably lithified succession is partitioned into metre‐scale, firmground‐bounded and hardground‐bounded beds textured by extensive Thalassinoides burrows. Dominant lithologies are interpreted as temperate seagrass facies. Limestones contain attributes indicative of both seagrass‐dominated palaeoenvironments and carbonate production and accumulation on unconsolidated, barren sandflat palaeoenvironments. Together these two depositional systems are thought to have generated a single multigenerational, amalgamated facies recording sedimentation within a complex temperate seagrass environment. Limestones overlying the Padthaway Ridge reflect a gradually warming climate, increasing water temperature and decreasing nutrient content, within the framework of a ridge gradually being buried in sediment. This succession from cool–temperate to warm–temperate to subtropical through time permits recognition of the relative influence of changing oceanography on a seagrass‐dominated shallow inter‐island sea floor. Criteria are proposed herein to enable future recognition of similar temperate seagrass facies in Cenozoic limestones elsewhere.     

Alteration of a Komatiite Flow from Alexo, Ontario, Canada

To investigate the ability of komatiites to preserve duringalteration a record of the geochemical and isotopic compositionof the Archean mantle, we studied the petrology and geochemistryof a komatiite flow from Alexo, Ontario. Although this flowis relatively well preserved, two main types of alteration arerecognized: (1) hydration of variable intensity throughout thewhole flow; (2) local rodingitization. In samples only slightlyaffected by hydration, the alteration was essentially isochemical;where more intense, hydration was accompanied by the mobilityof TiO₂, Zr and the light rare-earth elements (LREE). The mobilityof these reputedly immobile trace elements is influenced bytexture and secondary mineral assemblages. Rodingitization wasaccompanied by still greater mobility. An Nd isochron with anage of 272698 Ma and Nd_(T) =+ 2.5 is defined by wholerock samples.Because the spread of Sm-Nd ratios is far greater than can beexplained by magmatic processes, the age is interpreted as thatof the main alteration event during or soon after emplacement.Scattered initial Sr isotopic ratios and Nd _(T) (+ 3.6 to +0.7)provide evidence for several younger events. The Nd (T) of magnaticclinopyroxene ( plus;3.8) is higher than that of mafic tofelsicrocks and pyroxenes from the Abibiti belt (Nd _(T) +2.5). Thisresult implies: (1) the komatiites exchanged Nd with surroundingrocks during waterrock interaction; (2) the isotopic compositionof komatiites and their mantle source differed from that ofthe more common basalts of the Abitibi belt. KEY WORDS: alteration; Archean; Komatiite; trace elements; radiogenic and stable islotopes ^*Present address: Ore Genesis Research Group, VIEPS Department of Earth Science, Monash University, Clayton, Vic 3168, Australia. Telephone: (61) 3 9905-3881. Fax: (61) 3 9905–4903. e-mail: ylahaye{at}artemis.earth.monash.edu.au     

Glaciation and tectonics in an active intracratonic basin: the Late Palaeozoic Itararé Group, Paraná Basin, Brazil

The Paraná Basin (1 600 000 km²) is the largest intracratonic basin in southern South America and contains a thick (1300 m) Permo-Carboniferous glacial succession (the Itararé Group). This paper describes over 1700 m of drill core recovered during recent exploration for oil and gas. Itararé Group sediments consist of massive and stratified diamictites interbedded with massive and graded sandstones, and massive and laminated mudstones. Facies are interpreted as the product of sediment gravity flows in a glacially influenced marine basin. Three stratigraphic formations can be defined across the basin, each consisting of a lowermost sandstone-rich member overlain by a diamictite-rich member. Examination of Itararé Group rocks both in core and outcrop shows that depositional processes were influenced by active faulting and downslope resedimentation on relatively steep and unstable substrate slopes. Primary glacial deposits such as tillites and associated striated pavements occur along the present eastern outcrop belt which probably coincided with the eastern basin margin during deposition of the Itararé Group. Ice masses fringing the eastern (southern African) and western (Bolivian) basin margins supplied sediment to the basin in the form of fluvio-glacial deltas, fans and floating ice tongues. This sediment was then resedimented downslope as debris flows and turbidites. Both stratigraphic relationships and the regional distribution of facies types identify a clear pattern of basin subsidence and step-wise expansion by outward faulting within Late Proterozoic mobile belts. The position of successive basin margins can be related to specific lineament structures in the underlying basement. Asymmetric expansion of the Paraná Basin occurred along the northern and southern basin margins during deposition of the Itararé Group; this expansion probably reflects shallow crustal adjustments activated by collisional movements along the Andean margin of South America during the Hercynian Orogeny.