Mid‐Miocene initiation of E‐W extension and recoupling of the Himalaya

The Tibetan plateau is host to numerous ~N‐S striking graben that have accommodated E‐W directed extension. The development of these structures has been interpreted to reflect a variety of different geological processes including plateau collapse, oroclinal bending or mid‐to‐lower crustal flow. New ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar thermochronology and quartz c‐axis data from the Thakkhola graben of west‐central Nepal show that E‐W extension was ongoing at least locally by the early Miocene (ca. 17 Ma). Our new, and previously published chronologic information on the initiation of graben across the orogen shows that they typically developed immediately after cessation of the South Tibetan detachment system, a structural network that facilitated differential southward movement of the upper and middle crust. We interpret this fundamental switch in orogen kinematics to reflect recoupling of the middle and upper Himalayan crust such that the subsequent widespread flow of the mid‐to‐lower crust out of the system to the east forced brittle accommodation in the upper crust.     

Trace-element study and uranium-lead dating of perovskite from the Afrikanda plutonic complex, Kola Peninsula (Russia) using LA-ICP-MS

The U-Pb geochronology of perovskite is a powerful tool in constraining the emplacement age of silica-undersaturated rocks. The trace-element and U-Pb isotopic compositions of perovskite from clinopyroxenite and silicocarbonatite from the Afrikanda plutonic complex (Kola, Russia) were determined by laser-ablation inductively-coupled mass-spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). In addition, the Sr isotopic composition of perovskite was measured by isotope-dilution mass-spectrometry to better constrain the relations between its host rocks. Perovskite from the two rock types shows a different degree of enrichment in Na, Mg, Mn, Pb, Fe, Al, V, rare-earth elements, Zr, Hf, Th, U and Ta. The perovskite ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr values are within analytical uncertainty of one another and fall within the range of mantle values. The ²⁰⁶Pb/²³⁸U ages (corrected for common lead using ²⁰⁷Pb-method) of perovskite from silicocarbonatite statistically yield a single population with a weighted mean of 371?±?8 Ma (2σ; MSWD?=?0.071). This age is indistinguishable, within uncertainty, to the clinopyroxenite weighted mean ²⁰⁶Pb/²³⁸U age of 374?±?10 Ma (2σ; MSWD?=?0.18). Our data are in good agreement with the previous geochronological study of the Afrikanda complex. The observed variations in trace-element composition of perovskite from silicocarbonatite and clinopyroxenite indicate that these rocks are not related by crystal fractionation. The Sr isotopic ratios and the fact that the two rocks are coeval suggest that they were either produced from a single parental melt by liquid immiscibility, or from two separate magmas derived at different degrees of partial melting from an isotopically equilibrated, but modally complex mantle source.     

华北克拉通南缘中条山-嵩山地区1.78Ga基性岩墙群的地球化学特征及构造环境

幔源岩浆侵位产生的基性岩墙群是地壳伸展裂解的重要标志。华北克拉通南缘中条山-嵩山地区出露有大量的中元古代基性岩墙群,对其研究将有助于深入了解华北克拉通中元古代构造演化特征。其岩石类型以辉绿岩为主,少量辉长辉绿岩和辉绿玢岩;主要造岩矿物为斜长石和单斜辉石,其它矿物包括角闪石、Fe-Ti氧化物、磷灰石、黑云母、碱性长石和石英。锆石SHRIMPU-Pb年龄为1785±18Ma,代表岩墙的结晶年龄。岩石K2O+Na2O含量为3.63%～6.18%,K2O/Na2O比值为0.73～1.38,FeOT含量较高(10.03%～13.59%),属于拉斑玄武岩系列。岩石的稀土元素含量高(142×10-6～381×10-6),亏损Nb、Ta、Zr、Hf等高场强元素,富集Rb、Ba、La等大离子亲石元素,全岩εNd(t)值为-6.2～-8.1。岩墙的固结指数(SI)和MgO含量呈明显的正相关关系,说明幔源岩浆发生过明显的结晶分异作用。地球化学分析表明,研究区基性岩墙属于板内拉斑玄武岩系列,与熊耳群火山岩有相似的地球化学特征;基于两者紧密的产出关系,我们认为该区岩墙可能是熊耳群火山岩的通道岩墙,共同代表了华北克拉通东、西陆块碰撞后伸展事件。     

Competing rationalities in water conflict: Mining and the indigenous community in Chiu Chiu,El Loa Province,northern Chile

Conflict over water is a significant phenomenon in many parts of the world where globally linked neoliberal economic activities encroach on the lands of indigenous peoples. This case study from Chile examines how water scarcity affecting indigenous agricultural communities in the Chilean Altiplano has been exacerbated by legally sanctioned mining‐related practices. Notably, the legal framing of the 1981 Water Code promotes private ownership of water rights and enhanced mining activity usually at the expense of the ancestral territorial rights of indigenous communities. In the case of the Atacameño community of Chiu Chiu, a serious decrease in subsistence and agriculture production has been suffered as a consequence of reduced flow in the Loa River, resulting from the water intensive needs and extraction practices of the nearby Chuquicamata mine owned by Codelco, the National Copper Corporation of Chile. Via an analysis of the political ecology of competing rationalities this paper explores how an economic rationality based on utilitarian and reductionist thinking manifested by Codelco has taken precedence locally over a socionatural rationality grounded in holistic thinking and sustainability concerns as articulated by the Chiu Chiu community.     

Diversity-accuracy assessment of multiple classifier systems for the land cover classification of the Khumbu region in the Himalayas

Land cover classification of mountainous environments continues to be a challenging remote sensing problem,owing to landscape complexities exhibited by the regi...     

Novel deseasonalizing models for improving the prediction of total ozone in column using evolutionary programming and neural networks

In this paper we present a novel method for deseasonalizing TOC data using non-linear models, with evolutionary computation techniques, and its performance with a neural network as regression approach. Specifically, the proposed deseasonalization method uses an evolutionary programming (EP) approach to carry out a curve fitting problem, where a given function model is optimized to be as similar as possible to an objective curve (a real TOC measurement in this case). Different non-linear models are proposed to be optimized with the EP algorithm. In addition, we test the possibility of deseasonalizing the TOC measurement and also the meteorological input data. The deseasonalized series is then used to train a neural network (multi-layer perceptron). We test the proposed models in the prediction of several TOC series in the Iberian Peninsula, where we carry out a comparison against a reference deseasonalizing model previously proposed in the literature. The results obtained show the good performance of some of the deseasonalizing models proposed in this paper.     

Possibilities and limits of prospective GIS land cover modelling—a compared case study: Garrotxes (France) and Alta Alpujarra Granadina (Spain)

This study focuses on the possibilities and the limits of a prospective GIS land cover modelling applied to two case studies (France and Spain). The methodology, based on available GIS tools, consists of using earlier land cover maps and relevant environmental factors (calibration data) to model actual, known land cover to validate the model. The model aggregates Markov chain analysis for time prediction and multi‐critera evaluation, multi‐objective evaluation and cellular automata to perform spatial contiguity of modelled land cover scores. The first results give an accurate, pixel by pixel prediction rate of approximately 75%. An important issue of this study consists of analysing prediction residues to improve the model.