Geology of the Hubert Miller seamount,Marie Byrd seamounts province,Amundsen Sea,West Antarctic

This work is dedicated to the results of joint Russian-German geodynamic studies carried out in the West Antarctic (areas of the Amundsen Sea, the Southern Ocean, the Marie Byrd seamounts, and the foot of the continental slope of Marie Byrd Land) during cruises 18/5a and 23/4 of the “R/V Polarstern” in 2001 and 2006, respectively. The material collected on the Hubert Miller seamount (Marie Byrd seamount) attests to the relict continental appearance of the rocks. This suggests the heterogeneity of the Amundsen seafloor and its formation through a spatiotemporal combination of the destruction of continental crust, progressive thalassogenesis (oceanization-taphrogenesis), and rifting, as opposed to a spreading origin. The high postconsolidation mobility during the destruction stage led to the areal dismembering and high permeability of the continental crust, as well as tectonomagmatic activation. The main process during the reworking of the continental crust is its magmatic substitution by mantle-derived basic-ultrabasic material with subsequent formation of a secondary oceanic crust and preservation of relics of the continental crust. The endogenic activity of the Earth was driven by transmagmatic fluids, which were supplied from the liquid core and caused transformation of the Earth’s crust and mantle.     

Continental recycling and true continental growth

Continental crust is very important for evolution of life because most bioessential elements are supplied from continent to ocean. In addition, the distribution of continent affects climate because continents have much higher albedo than ocean, equivalent to cloud. Conventional views suggest that continental crust is gradually growing through the geologic time and that most continental crust was formed in the Phanerozoic and late Proterozoic. However, the thermal evolution of the Earth implies that much amounts of continental crust should be formed in the early Earth. This is “Continental crust paradox”.Continental crust comprises granitoid, accretionary complex, and sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. The latter three components originate from erosion of continental crust because the accretionary and metamorphic complexes mainly consist of clastic materials. Granitoid has two components: a juvenile component through slab-melting and a recycling component by remelting of continental materials. Namely, only the juvenile component contributes to net continental growth. The remains originate from recycling of continental crust. Continental recycling has three components: intracrustal recycling, crustal reworking, and crust–mantle recycling, respectively. The estimate of continental growth is highly varied. Thermal history implied the rapid growth in the early Earth, whereas the present distribution of continental crust suggests the slow growth. The former regards continental recycling as important whereas the latter regarded as insignificant, suggesting that the variation of estimate for the continental growth is due to involvement of continental recycling.We estimated erosion rate of continental crust and calculated secular changes of continental formation and destruction to fit four conditions: present distribution of continental crust (no continental recycling), geochronology of zircons (intracontinental recycling), Hf isotope ratios of zircons (crustal reworking) and secular change of mantle temperature. The calculation suggests some important insights. (1) The distribution of continental crust around at 2.7 Ga is equivalent to the modern amounts. (2) Especially, the distribution of continental crust from 2.7 to 1.6 Ga was much larger than at present, and the sizes of the total continental crust around 2.4, 1.7, and 0.8 Ga became maximum. The distribution of continental crust has been decreasing since then. More amounts of continental crust were formed at higher mantle temperatures at 2.7, 1.9, and 0.9 Ga, and more amounts were destructed after then. As a result, the mantle overturns led to both the abrupt continental formation and destruction, and extinguished older continental crust. The timing of large distribution of continental crust apparently corresponds to the timing of icehouse periods in Precambrian.     

A new magnetic map of the Weddell Sea and the Antarctic Peninsula

As part of the Antarctic Digital Magnetic Mapping Project (ADMAP) workers from VNIIOkeangeologia (Russia), the British Antarctic Survey (UK) and the Naval Research Laboratory (USA) have brought together almost all of the available magnetic data in the area 0–120°W, 60–90°S. The final map covers the whole Weddell Sea and adjacent land areas, the Antarctic Peninsula and the seas to the west, an area comparable in size with that of the USA. This paper describes the methods used during the compilation of the map and reviews briefly some of the main features shown on it. Distinct magnetic provinces are associated with Precambrian rocks of the East Antarctic craton, highly extended continental crust in the Weddell Sea embayment, the arc batholith of the Antarctic Peninsula, and oceanic crust of the northern Weddell Sea, which was created as a direct consequence of South America–Antarctica plate motion and oceanic crust generated at the Pacific–Antarctic ridge. The magnetic anomaly map thus provides an overview of the fragmentation of south-western Gondwana and the tectonic development of the Weddell Sea sector of Antarctica.     

Strike-slip fault system in the Earth’s crust of the Bering Sea: A relic of boundary between the Eurasian and North American lithospheric plates

A study based on computation of D-function anomalies (method of joint gravity and magnetic data analysis) along profiles in the Bering Sea has been performed in both the Aleutian Basin with oceanic crust and the Bering continental shelf. This study revealed extended faults that affect not only the Earth’s crust but also the upper mantle. This is supported by seismic profiling. The calculated palinspastic reconstructions of the position of North America relative to “immobile” Eurasia 80, 52–50, 50–47, and 15–20 Ma ago allowed us to show that the revealed strike-slip faults are probable relics of an echeloned transform boundary between the Eurasian and North American lithospheric plates. The formation of this boundary beginning from the Late Cretaceous was apparently related to opening of the North Atalantic, which determined the large rate of displacement of North America relative to Eurasia.     

Deep mantle roots and continental emergence: implications for whole-Earth elemental cycling,long-term climate,and the Cambrian explosion

Elevations on Earth are dominantly controlled by crustal buoyancy, primarily through variations in crustal thickness: continents ride higher than ocean basins because they are underlain by thicker crust. Mountain building, where crust is magmatically or tectonically thickened, is thus key to making continents. However, most of the continents have long passed their mountain building origins, having since subsided back to near sea level. The elevations of the old, stable continents are lower than that expected for their crustal thicknesses, requiring a subcrustal component of negative buoyancy that develops after mountain building. While initial subsidence is driven by crustal erosion, thermal relaxation through growth of a cold thermal boundary layer provides the negative buoyancy that causes continents to subside further. The maximum thickness of this thermal boundary layer is controlled by the thickness of a chemically and rheologically distinct continental mantle root, formed during large-scale mantle melting billions of years ago. The final resting elevation of a stabilized continent is controlled by the thickness of this thermal boundary layer and the temperature of the Earth’s mantle, such that continents ride higher in a cooler mantle and lower in a hot mantle. Constrained by the thermal history of the Earth, continents are predicted to have been mostly below sea level for most of Earth’s history, with areas of land being confined to narrow strips of active mountain building. Large-scale emergence of stable continents occurred late in Earth’s history (Neoproterozoic) over a 100–300 million year transition, irreversibly altering the surface of the Earth in terms of weathering, climate, biogeochemical cycling and the evolution of life. Climate during the transition would be expected to be unstable, swinging back and forth between icehouse and greenhouse states as higher order fluctuations in mantle dynamics would cause the Earth to fluctuate rapidly between water and terrestrial worlds.     

Abundances of chemical elements in the Earth’s crust

The evaluation of the abundances of chemical elements in the Earth’s crust is a pivotal geochemical problem. Its first solutions in the early 20th century formed the empirical groundwork for geochemistry and justified concepts about the unity of the material of the Universe, the genesis of the chemical elements, and the geochemical differentiation of the Earth. The accumulation of newly obtained data called for the revision of this problem, and a series of papers by A.P. Vinogradov, which were published in Geokhimiya in 1956–1962, presented reevaluated contents of elements in the continental crust. In these papers, A.P. Vinogradov relied on the classic idea of the geochemical balance of the sedimentary process. These generalizations provided the foundation for the quantitative characterization of the geochemical background of the biosphere and allowed Vinogradov to formulate the principles of the melting and degassing of material in the outer Earth’s shells during the geologic history, a concept that became universally acknowledged in modern geochemistry and geology. The composition of the Earth’s crust can also be evaluated based not on the principle of geochemical balance in the sedimentary process but on data on the actual abundances of major magmatic, metamorphic, and sedimentary rock types. The possibility of this solution was provided after the extensive research of A.B. Ronov, who managed to develop a quantitative model for the structure of the Earth’s sedimentary shell. Based on these data, A.B. Ronov, A.A. Yaroshevsky, and A.A. Migdisov published a series of papers in Geokhimiya in 1967–1985 that presented a model for the chemical structure of the Earth’s crust with regard for the material composing not only the upper part of the continental crust but also its deep-seated granulite-basite layer and the oceanic crust. The quantitative estimates thus obtained led the authors to important conclusions: first, it was demonstrated that the estimated abundances of elements in the granite-metamorphic layer of the continental crust presented in the classic works by A.P. Vinogradov are confirmed by independent materials, which are based on data on the actual abundance of rocks. Second, incredible as it was, the principle of geochemical balance in the sedimentary process in application to Ca and carbonates appeared to be invalid. This problem remains unsettled as of yet and awaits its resolution.     

Dispersion of group velocities of Rayleigh and Love waves and anisotropic properties of the Asian continent

We have studied the structures of the Earth’s crust and upper mantle of the Asian continent using a representative sample of dispersion curves of group velocities of fundamental-mode Rayleigh and Love waves for more than 3200 seismic paths. Maps of distributions of variations in group velocities with periods of 10 to 250 s over a spherical surface were calculated by the 2D tomography method. The maps reflect the deep structure of the Earth’s crust and upper mantle of the study area and give a tentative idea of the horizontal distribution of the anisotropic properties of the mantle matter. The obtained data are confirmed by the calculations of the velocity profiles of SV- and SH-waves for the entire Asian continent and for its regions. Vertically, anisotropy is observed to the depths of ~ 250 km, with its maximum in the depth range from the bottom of the crust to 150 km.     

Tectonic activity of the early Earth (4.56-3.4(2.7?) Ga)

The paper discusses a possible model of the ancient (Hadean-Archean) Earth’s geodynamic evolution. We believe that the early Earth was characterized by a stagnant lid regime and whole-mantle convection suggesting cells that convect through the whole mantle (from the core-mantle boundary to the lithosphere base). The lid tectonics was perturbed by asteroid-meteorite bombardments that destroyed the primary terrestrial partly granitoid crust. The destroyed crust together with the residual enriched mantle reservoirs sank into the lower mantle. In addition to the crust destruction, the bombardments led to emplacement of a huge proportion of basalt-komatiitic melts, which can be interpreted as mantle overturn events. In the Hadean, the Earth survived frequent large-scale asteroid-meteorite bombardments, which resulted in almost a complete destruction of the primary terrestrial crust. In the Early Archean, the Earth still experienced the same tectonic processes, as in the Hadean; however, meteorite impact was small-scale and the bombardments influenced only a limited area of a common, as it seems to us, subequatorial supercontinent. Those bombardments led to the sagduction of the Archean basalt-komatiiic terrestrial crust, which sank into the mantle, transforming into amphibolite-eclogite rocks giving rise to a tonalite-troondhjemite-granodiorite suite. As preserved in the zircon record, the formation of the Archean mantle-derived magmas occurred as pulses at 4.5, 4.2-4.3, 3.8-3.9, and 3.3-3.4 Ga. These peaks, most likely, correspond to the Hadean-Archean meteorite bombardments. There is evidence of formation of the subcontinental lithospheric mantle (SCLM) beneath the cratons between 3.3 and 3.5 Ga. This SCLM was markedly different from peridotites of modern ophiolites. However, the existence of ophiolitic peridotites indicates that modern style plate tectonic processes were in operation at that time, as we will discuss below. The transition from the early Earth (Hadean-Archean) tectonic style to the recent tectonics occurred between 3.4 (2.7?) and 2.0 Ga.     

Deep structures in the Maritime Territory-Sea of Japan continental margin from seismic data

This paper discusses the results of interpreting seismic profiles on the Earth’s crust of the Maritime Territory and Sea of Japan performed during the 20th century by the Sakhalin Integrated Research Institute and by the Schmidt Joint Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences. The seismic profiles confirmed the presence of structural features under the Maritime Territory and the Sea of Japan that were revealed previously from geological data, such as spreading zones, rifts, deep-seated faults, overthrusts, and subduction zones, suggesting an active type of continental margin in the Far East region. We assumed that a high occurrence of the asthenospheric layer enclosing magmatic chambers explains the high activity of tectonic processes in the Far Eastern continental margin. The identified system of rifts and spreading centers supports this assumption.     

Crustal Structure across the Northwestern Margin of South China Sea: Evidence for Magma‐poor Rifting from a Wide‐angle Seismic Profile

We present results from a 484 km wide-angle seismic profile acquired in the northwest part of the South China Sea (SCS) during OBS2006 cruise. The line that runs along a previously acquired multi-channel seismic line (SO49-18) crosses the continental slope of the northern margin, the Northwest Subbasin (NWSB) of the South China Sea, the Zhongsha Massif and partly the oceanic basin of the South China Sea. Seismic sections recorded on 13 ocean-bottom seismometers were used to identify refracted phases from the crustal layer and also reflected phases from the crust-mantle boundary (Moho). Inversion of the traveltimes using a simple start model reveals crustal images in the study area. The velocity model shows that crustal thickness below the continental slope is between 14 and 23 km. The continental part of the line is characterized by gentle landward mantle uplift and an abrupt oceanward one. The velocities in the lower crust do not exceed 6.9 km/s. With the new data we can exclude a high-velocity lower crustal body (velocities above 7.0 km/s) at the location of the line. We conclude that this part of the South China Sea margin developed by a magma-poor rifting. Both, the NWSB and the Southwest Sub-basin (SWSB) reveal velocities typical for oceanic crust with crustal thickness between 5 and 7 km. The Zhongsha Massif in between is extremely stretched with only 6–10 km continental crust left. Crustal velocity is below 6.5 km/s; possibly indicating the absence of the lower crust. Multi-channel seismic profile shows that the Yitongansha Uplift in the slope area and the Zhongsha Massif are only mildly deformed. We considered them as rigid continent blocks which acted as rift shoulders of the main rift subsequently resulting in the formation of the Northwest Sub-basin. The extension was mainly accommodated by a ductile lower crustal flows, which might have been extremely attenuated and flow into the oceanic basin during the spreading stage. We compared the crustal structures along the northern margin and found an east-west thicken trend of the crust below the continent slope. This might be contributed by the east-west sea-floor spreading along the continental margin.     

Continental crustal volume,thickness and area,and their geodynamic implications

Models of the volume of continental crust through Earth history vary significantly due to a range of assumptions and data sets; estimates for 3 Ga range from <10% to >120% of present day volume. We argue that continental area and thickness varied independently and increased at different rates and over different periods, in response to different tectonic processes, through Earth history. Crustal area increased steadily on a pre-plate tectonic Earth, prior to ca. 3 Ga. By 3 Ga the area of continental crust appears to have reached a dynamic equilibrium of around 40% of the Earth's surface, and this was maintained in the plate tectonic world throughout the last 3 billion years. New continental crust was relatively thin and mafic from ca. 4–3 Ga but started to increase substantially with the inferred onset of plate tectonics at ca. 3 Ga, which also led to the sustained development of Earth's bimodal hypsometry. Integration of thickness and area data suggests continental volume increased from 4.5 Ga to 1.8 Ga, and that it remained relatively constant through Earth's middle age (1.8–0.8 Ga). Since the Neoproterozoic, the estimated crustal thickness, and by implication the volume of the continental crust, appears to have decreased by as much as 15%. This decrease indicates that crust was destroyed more rapidly than it was generated. This is perhaps associated with the commencement of cold subduction, represented by low dT/dP metamorphic assemblages, resulting in higher rates of destruction of the continental crust through increased sediment subduction and subduction erosion.     

A window on West Antarctic crustal boundaries: the junction between the Antarctic Peninsula, the Filchner Block, and Weddell Sea oceanic lithosphere

A new airborne magnetic survey of the southeastern Antarctic Peninsula and adjacent Weddell Sea embayment (WSE) region suggests a continuity of geological structure between the eastern Antarctic Peninsula and the attenuated continental crust of the Filchner Block. This has implications for the reconstructed position of the Ellsworth–Whitmore Mountains block in Gondwana, which is currently uncertain. Palaeomagnetic data indicate that it has migrated from a Palaeozoic position between South Africa and Coats Land to its current position as a microplate embedded in central West Antarctica. The most obvious route for migration is between the Antarctic Peninsula and the Weddell Sea embayment. Evidence that geological structures are continuous across the boundary places constraints on the timing and pathway of migration. Magnetic textures suggest the presence of shallow features extending from the Beaumont Glacier Zone (BGZ) in the west for at least 200 km into the Weddell Sea embayment. These data suggest that the Eastern Domain of the Antarctic Peninsula and the stretched continental crust of the Filchner Block share a common recent, probably post-Early Jurassic, history. However, examination of deep anomalies indicates differences in the magnetic characteristics of the two blocks. The boundary may mark either the edge of extended continental crust, or a discontinuity between two, once separated, blocks. This discontinuity, or pre-Late Jurassic Antarctic Peninsula terrane boundaries to the west, may have allowed the passage of the Ellsworth–Whitmore Mountains block to its present location.     

Evolution of the 3.65–2.58 Ga Mairi Gneiss Complex,Brazil: Implications for growth of the continental crust in the São Francisco Craton

The composition and formation of the Earth’s primitive continental crust and mantle differentiation are key issues to understand and reconstruct the geodynamic terrestrial evolution, especially during the Archean. However, the scarcity of exposure to these rocks, the complexity of lithological relationships, and the high degree of superimposed deformation, especially with long-lived magmatism, make it difficult to study ancient rocks. Despite this complexity, exposures of the Archean Mairi Gneiss Complex basement unit in the São Francisco Craton offer important information about the evolution of South America’s primitive crust. Therefore, here we present field relationships, LA-ICP-SFMS zircon U-Pb ages, and LA-ICP-MCMS Lu-Hf isotope data for the recently identified Eoarchean to Neoarchean gneisses of the Mairi Complex. The Complex is composed of massive and banded gneisses with mafic members ranging from dioritic to tonalitic, and felsic members ranging from TTG (Tonalite-Trondhjemite-Granodiorite) to granitic composition. Our new data point to several magmatic episodes in the formation of the Mairi Gneiss Complex: Eoarchean (ca. 3.65–3.60 Ga), early Paleoarchean (ca. 3.55–3.52 Ga), middle-late Paleoarchean (ca. 3.49–3.33 Ga) and Neoarchean (ca. 2.74–2.58 Ga), with no records of Mesoarchean rocks. Lu-Hf data unveiled a progressive evolution of mantle differentiation and crustal recycling over time. In the Eoarchean, rocks are probably formed by the interaction between the pre-existing crust and juvenile contribution from chondritic to weakly depleted mantle sources, whereas mantle depletion played a role in the Paleoarchean, followed by greater differentiation of the crust with thickening and recycling in the middle–late Paleoarchean. A different stage of crustal growth and recycling dominated the Neoarchean, probably owing to the thickening of the continental crust by collision, continental arc growth, and mantle differentiation.     

The Late Cenozoic geodynamic evolution of the central segment of the Andean subduction zone

The presented model of the Late Cenozoic geodynamic evolution of the central Andes and the complex tectonic, geological, and geophysical model of the Earth’s crust and upper mantle along the Central Andean Transect, which crosses the Andean subduction zone along 21°S, are based on the integration of voluminous and diverse data. The onset of the recent evolution of the central Andes is dated at the late Oligocene (27 Ma ago), when the local fluid-induced rheological attenuation of the continental lithosphere occurred far back of the subduction zone. Tectonic deformation started to develop in thick-skinned style above the attenuated domain in the upper mantle and then in the Earth’s crust, creating the bivergent system of the present-day Eastern Cordillera. The destruction of the continental lithosphere is correlated with ore mineralization in the Bolivian tin belt, which presumably started at 16° S and spread to the north and to the south. Approximately 19 Ma ago, the gently dipping Subandean Thrust Fault was formed beneath the Eastern Cordillera, along which the South American Platform began to thrust under the Andes with rapid thickening of the crust in the eastern Andean Orogen owing to its doubling. The style of deformation in the upper crust above the Subandean Thrust Fault changed from thick- to thin-skinned, and the deformation front migrated to the east inland, forming the Subandean system of folds and thrust faults verging largely eastward. The thickening of the crust was accompanied by flows at the lower and/or middle crustal levels, delamination, and collapse of fragments of the lower crust and lithospheric mantle beneath the Eastern Cordillera and Altiplano-Puna Plateau. As the thickness of the middle and lower crustal layers reached a critical thickness about 10 Ma ago, the viscoplastic flow in the meridional direction became more intense. Extension of the upper brittle crust was realized mainly in gliding and rotation of blocks along a rhombic fault system. Some blocks sank, creating sedimentary basins. The rate of southward migration estimated from the age of these basins is 26 km/Ma. Tectonic deformation was accompanied by diverse magmatic activity (ignimbrite complexes, basaltic flows, shoshonitic volcanism, etc.) within the tract from the Western Cordillera to the western edge of the Eastern Cordillera 27–5 Ma ago with a peak at 7 Ma; after this, it began to recede westward; by 5 Ma ago, the magmatic activity reached only the western part of the Altiplano-Puna Plateau, and it has been concentrated in the volcanic arc of the Western Cordillera during the last 2 Ma.     

Typification of the Earth’s crust of Central Arctic Uplifts in the Arctic Ocean

The modern views on the structure of the oceanic and continental crust are discussed. The presented geological-geophysical information on the deep structure of the Earth’s crust of the Lomonosov Ridge, Mendeleev Rise, and Alpha Ridge, which make up the province of the Central Arctic Uplifts in the Arctic Ocean, is based on CMP, seismic-reflection, and seismic-refraction data obtained by Russian and Western researchers along geotraverses across the Amerasia Basin. It is established that the crust thickness beneath the Central Arctic Uplifts ranges from 22 to 40 km. Comparison of the obtained velocity sections with standard crust sections of different morphostructures in the World Ocean that are underlain by the typical oceanic crust demonstrates their difference with respect to the crustal structure and to the thickness of the entire crust and its individual layers. Within the continental crust, the supercritical waves reflected from the upper mantle surface play the dominant role. Their amplitude exceeds that of head and refracted waves by one to two orders of magnitude. In contrast, the refracted and, probably, interferential head waves are dominant within the oceanic crust. The Moho discontinuity is the only first-order boundary. In the consolidated oceanic crust, such boundaries are not known. The similarity in the velocity characteristics of the crust of the Alpha Ridge and Mendeleev Rise, on the one hand, and the continental crust beneath the Lomonosov Ridge, on the other, gives grounds to state that the crust of the Mendeleev Rise and Alpha Ridge belongs to the continental type. The interference mosaic pattern of the anomalous magnetic field of the Central Arctic Uplifts is an additional argument in favor of this statement. Such patterns are typical of the continental crust with intense intraplate volcanism. Interpretation of seismic crustal sections of the Central Arctic Uplifts and their comparison with allowance for characteristic features of the continental and oceanic crust indicate that the Earth’s crust of the uplifts has the continental structure.     

Ar degassing and the origin of the sialic crust

The degassing of radiogenic Ar⁴⁰ is defined as coherent if only the Ar⁴⁰ associated with parent K is degassed as K is transferred from the mantle to crust. Coherency predicts, for a 4.55 b.y. Earth, a sialic crust with 2.50 per cent K, using only the Ar content of the atmosphere and present crust (from a Hurley and Rand, 1969, age distribution). This is a maximum limit to K content of the sialic crust if the age of the Earth is no younger than 4.55 b.y. A K content of the sialic crust of 1.9 per cent (Holland and Lambert, 1972) implies an efficiency (E) less than 100 per cent for K transfer from oceanic basalt to sialic crust in subduction zones and/or some non-coherent (preferential) degassing of Ar from the mantle.K, Ar coherence for mantle differentiation to crust is supported however, by the agreement of the predicted oceanic He flux and radiogenic He-Ar ratios of volcanic gases with the observed limits if the best estimate of K, U, Th influx rates at oceanic ridges is used.Assuming K, Ar coherence, various sea-floor spreading rates as functions of time, and limiting K contents of the sialic crust, computed models give E and the portion of the sialic crust derived from melting oceanic basalt in subduction zones. Except for models with very high spreading rates in the Precambrian, they also predict that a significant part of the sialic crust was derived from vertical differentiation of the mantle, presumably early in Earth history. The results are in accord with Armstrong's model of an early sialic crust that is recycled to give a Hurley-type age pattern with the proviso that the ‘vertical’ sial K_υis formed early in Earth history for models with a high K_υcomponent.The coherent K, Ar models with preferred estimates of input parameters are also consistent with a limited mixing model (only old and new sial are equilibrated) for Sr isotopic evolution and the probable average $\text{Sr}{}^{87}\text{Sr}{}^{86}$ ratio now of the sialic crust.     

中国边缘海域及其邻区的岩石层结构与构造分析

利用中国边缘海域近年的地震层析成像结果,根据速度异常和各向异性分析东海、黄海和南海北部的岩石层结构和构造,讨论中朝块体和扬子块体在黄海内部的拼合边界(黄海东部断裂带)、东海陆架盆地上地幔异常与岩石层形成演化、南海北部地壳底部高速层的成因及地幔活动等问题。分析表明,黄海东部与朝鲜半岛之间存在一个深部构造界限(大致对应于黄海东部断裂带),分界两侧Pn波速度各向异性存在明显差异,反映不同构造应力和断裂剪切运动作用下的岩石层地幔变形特征。东海陆架下方的低速异常揭示了张裂盆地形成时期的地幔活动痕迹,表明中、新生代期间发生过地幔上涌并造成岩石层减薄,菲律宾海板块向西俯冲引发的地幔活动对东海陆架岩石层的形成、演化产生明显的影响。南海北部岩石层厚度较大并且温度相对偏低,地幔异常仅限于局部地区,估计南海北部大陆边缘的地壳底部高速层形成于张裂发生之前,或者是地壳形成时期壳幔分异时的产物。南海中央海盆的扩张不仅导致地壳拉张,软流层物质上涌,而且也造成岩石层地幔减薄甚至缺失。     

Proterozoic melting in the northern peridotite Massif, Zabargad Island: Os isotopic evidence

The geodynamic history of the three Zabargad peridotite bodies is the key to their significance as samples of the upper mantle. Currently, there are two main hypotheses that differ greatly in their implications for the origin and age of the peridotite complex as a whole. In the first, the Zabargad peridotite bodies all represent young asthenospheric mantle that was juxtaposed with ancient crustal gneisses during the opening of the Red Sea. In the second, the complex may represent a single package of residual mantle and lower crust of Pan-African age that was uplifted during the Miocene. In order to distinguish between these two models, we have analysed five samples of Zabargad peridotite and two pyroxenites for Os isotopes. The ¹⁸⁷Os/¹⁸⁸Os results range from 0.1198 to 0.1320 and correlate with Al₂O₃, allowing an age inference for the northern body, based on the Os isotopic evolution curve for the bulk Earth, of 1.4±0.3 Gyr. This is at least as old as the previously inferred Pan-African age and may be older, and agrees with previous suggestions that the northern and central peridotite bodies probably represent ancient continental lithospheric mantle, while the southern body represents recent asthenospheric mantle. Our results from both central and southern bodies are consistent with either crustal age hypothesis.     

Sm／Nd Evolution of Upper Mantle and Continental Crust：Constraints on Gowth Rates of the Continental Crust

A new approach to the investigation of the Sm/Nd evolution of the upper mantle directly from the data on lherzolite xenoliths is described in this paper.It is demonstrated that the model age TCHUR of an unmetasomatic iherzolite zenolith ca represent the mean depletion age of its mantle source, thus presenting a correlation trend between f^Sm/Nd and the mean depletion age of the upper mantle from the data on xenoliths.This correlation trend can also be derived from the data on river suspended loads as well as from granitoids.Based on the correlation trend mentioned above and mean depletion ages of the upper mantle at various geological times, an evolution curve for the mean f^Sm/Nd value of the upper mantle through geological time has been established.It is suggested that the upwilling of lower mantle material into the upper mantle and the recycling of continental crust material during the Archean were more active ,thus maintaining fairly constantf^Sm/Nd and εNd values during this time period. Similarly ,an evolution curve for the mean f^Sm/Nd value of the continental crust through geological time has also been established from the data of continental crust material.In the light of both evolution curves for the upper mantle and continental crust ,a growth curve for the continental crust has been worked out ,suggesting that :(1)about 30%(in volume )of the present crust was present as the continental crust at 3.8 Ga ago ;(2)the growth rate was much lower during the Archean ;and (3)the Proterozoic is another major period of time during which the continental crust wsa built up .     

Formation of oil and gas fields

Cycles of the geosynclinal-orogenic-platformal development of the continental crust are separated by natural phases of crustal destruction. They are determined by pulses of degassing of the Earth’s core marked by decelerated inversions of the magnetic field. Such pulses occur under the influence of fluid flows that ascend from the core and loss hydrogen. Consequently, the fluids acquire acidic properties and become aggressive to rocks of the continental crust (H₂ + 2CO = H₂ O + 0.5CO₂ + 1.5C). Oceanization of the continental crust represents the main result of its destruction accompanied by the formation of seas and sedimentary basins largely on the underwater margins of continents. Development of geodynamic compression setting of the Earth’s crust due to its evolution creates conditions that impede the loss of hydrogen from ascending fluid flows. Consequently, they acquire the ability to generate hydrocarbons (4H₂ + 2CO = 2H₂O + CH₄ + C) and produce oil and gas pools. This setting is marked by intrusions of alkaline rocks with characteristic water-hydrocarbon inclusions in minerals and by the development of fold-thrust and reversed fault dislocations in depressions. The dislocations controlled not only the fluid-related leaching of rocks, but also the distribution of oil and gas pools within both sedimentary basins and their basement.