The Eucla Basin including the vast Nullarbor Plain lies on the margins of the Yilgarn, Musgrave and Gawler cratons in southern Australia and owes its distinctive landscape to a unique set of interactions between eustatic, climatic and tectonic processes over the last ~ 50 Ma. Understanding of the history of the basin and the palaeovalleys that drained from the surrounding cratons are important because they contain major mineral deposits, and the sediments derived from them contain remobilised gold, uranium, and heavy minerals. In particular, a remarkably preserved palaeoshoreline sequence along the north-eastern margin of the Eucla Basin is highly prospective for heavy mineral placer deposits. The record of marine, marginal marine, estuarine, fluvial and lacustrine environments, as constrained mainly by an extensive borehole dataset, reflects major depositional events during the Palaeocene–Early Eocene, Middle–Late Eocene, Oligocene–Early Miocene, Middle Miocene–Early Pliocene and Pliocene–Quaternary. These events reflect the key role of eustatic sea-level variation which, during highstands, inundated the craton margins, flooding palaeovalleys to up to 400 km inboard of the present coastline. However, a systematic eastward migration of the depocentre across the Eucla Basin during the Neogene, together with apparent flow reversals in a number of palaeovalley systems draining the Gawler Craton, suggest that the Eucla Basin has also been subject to differential vertical movements, expressed as a west-side up, east-side down tilting of ~ 100–200 m. This differential movement forms part of a broader north-down–southwest-up dynamic topographic tilting of the Australian continent associated with relatively fast (6–7 cm/yr) northward plate motion since fast spreading commenced in the Southern Ocean at ~ 43 Ma. We suggest that the evolving dynamic topography field has played a key role in facilitating development of placer deposits, largely through multistage, eastward reworking of near-shore sequences during highstand transgressive cycles on a progressively tilting platform under the influence of persistent westerly weather systems. 相似文献
The Anarak, Jandaq and Posht-e-Badam metamorphic complexes occupy the NW part of the Central-East Iranian Microcontinent and are juxtaposed with the Great Kavir block and Sanandaj-Sirjan zone. Our recent findings redefine the origin of these complexes, so far attributed to the Precambrian–Early Paleozoic orogenic episodes, and now directly related to the tectonic evolution of the Paleo-Tethys Ocean. This tectonic evolution was initiated by Late Ordovician–Early Devonian rifting events and terminated in the Triassic by the Eocimmerian collision event due to the docking of the Cimmerian blocks with the Asiatic Turan block.
The “Variscan accretionary complex” is a new name we proposed for the most widely distributed metamorphic rocks connected to the Anarak and Jandaq complexes. This accretionary complex exposed from SW of Jandaq to the Anarak and Kabudan areas is a thick and fine grain siliciclastic sequence accompanied by marginal-sea ophiolitic remnants, including gabbro-basalts with a supra-subduction-geochemical signature. New 40Ar/39Ar ages are obtained as 333–320 Ma for the metamorphism of this sequence under greenschist to amphibolite facies. Moreover, the limy intercalations in the volcano-sedimentary part of this complex in Godar-e-Siah yielded Upper Devonian–Tournaisian conodonts. The northeastern part of this complex in the Jandaq area was intruded by 215 ± 15 Ma arc to collisional granite and pegmatites dated by ID-TIMS and its metamorphic rocks are characterized by some 40Ar/39Ar radiometric ages of 163–156 Ma.
The “Variscan” accretionary complex was northwardly accreted to the Airekan granitic terrane dated at 549 ± 15 Ma. Later, from the Late Carboniferous to Triassic, huge amounts of oceanic material were accreted to its southern side and penetrated by several seamounts such as the Anarak and Kabudan. This new period of accretion is supported by the 280–230 Ma 40Ar/39Ar ages for the Anarak mild high-pressure metamorphic rocks and a 262 Ma U–Pb age for the trondhjemite–rhyolite association of that area. The Triassic Bayazeh flysch filled the foreland basin during the final closure of the Paleo-Tethys Ocean and was partly deposited and/or thrusted onto the Cimmerian Yazd block.
The Paleo-Tethys magmatic arc products have been well-preserved in the Late Devonian–Carboniferous Godar-e-Siah intra-arc deposits and the Triassic Nakhlak fore-arc succession. On the passive margin of the Cimmerian block, in the Yazd region, the nearly continuous Upper Paleozoic platform-type deposition was totally interrupted during the Middle to Late Triassic. Local erosion, down to Lower Paleozoic levels, may be related to flexural bulge erosion. The platform was finally unconformably covered by Liassic continental molassic deposits of the Shemshak.
One of the extensional periods related to Neo-Tethyan back-arc rifting in Late Cretaceous time finally separated parts of the Eocimmerian collisional domain from the Eurasian Turan domain. The opening and closing of this new ocean, characterized by the Nain and Sabzevar ophiolitic mélanges, finally transported the Anarak–Jandaq composite terrane to Central Iran, accompanied by large scale rotation of the Central-East Iranian Microcontinent (CEIM). Due to many similarities between the Posht-e-Badam metamorphic complex and the Anarak–Jandaq composite terrane, the former could be part of the latter, if it was transported further south during Tertiary time. 相似文献
A relict mound of Holocene barite (BaSO4) tufa underlies the Flybye Springs, a small, barium‐rich, cold sulphur spring system in the Northwest Territories of Canada. The tufa is composed of relatively pure barite with ≤0·34 wt% Ca2+ and ≤0·77 wt% Sr2+. The mound is made up of coated bubble, raft, undulatory sheet, stromatolitic, coated grain and detrital conglomerate barite tufa. Although previously unreported in barite, these lithotypes are akin to facies found in many carbonate spring deposits. Raft and ooid‐coated grain tufa was formed via ‘inorganic’ barite precipitation in spring water ponds and tributaries where rapid oxidation of sulphide to sulphate established barite supersaturation. Undulatory sheet tufa may have formed by the reaction of dissolved barium with sulphate derived from the oxidation of extracellular polysaccharide‐rich colloidal sulphur films floating in oxygenated, barite‐saturated spring water ponds. Coated bubble, oncoid‐coated grain and stromatolitic tufa with filamentous microfossils was formed in close association with sulphur‐tolerant microbes inhabiting dysoxic and oxygenated spring water tributaries and ponds. Adsorption of dissolved barium to microbial extracellular polysaccharide probably facilitated the development of these ‘biogenic’ lithotypes. Detrital conglomerate tufa was formed by barite cementation of microdetrital tufa, allochthonous lithoclasts and organic detritus, including caribou hair. Biogenic textures, organic artefacts and microfossils in the Flybye barite tufa have survived diagenetic aggradational recrystallization and precipitation of secondary cements, indicating the potential for palaeoecological information to be preserved in barite in the geological record. Similarities between the Flybye barite tufa and carbonate spring deposits demonstrate that analogous textures can develop in chemical sedimentary systems with distinct mineralogy, biology and physiochemistry. 相似文献
Two sites in the eastern Fram Strait, the Vestnesa Ridge and the Yermak Plateau, have been surveyed and sampled providing a depositional record over the last glacial‐interglacial cycle. The Fram Strait is the only deep‐water connection from the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic and contains a marine sediment record of both high latitude thermohaline flow and ice sheet interaction. On the Vestnesa Ridge, the western Svalbard margin, a sediment drift was identified in 1226 m of water. Gravity and multicores from the crest of the drift recovered turbidites and contourites. 14C dating indicates an age range of 8287 to 26 900 years BP (Early Holocene to Late Weichselian). The Yermak Plateau is characterized by slope sediments in 961 m of water. Gravity and multicores recovered contourites and hemipelagites. 14C ages were between 8615 and 46 437 years BP (Early Holocene to mid‐Weichselian). Downcore dinoflagellate cyst analyses from both sites provide a record of changing surface water conditions since the mid‐Weichselian, suggesting variable sea ice extent, productivity and polynyas present even during the Last Glacial Maximum. Four layers of ice‐rafted debris were also identified and correlated within the cores. These events occurred ca at 9, 24 to 25, 26 to 27 and 43 ka, asynchronous with Heinrich layers in the wider north‐east Atlantic and here interpreted as reflecting instability in the Svalbard/Barents Ice sheet and the northward advection of warm Atlantic water during the Late Weichselian. The activity of the ancestral West Spitsbergen Current is interpreted using mean sortable silt records from the cores. On the Vestnesa Ridge drift the modern mass accumulation rate, calculated using excess 210Pb, is 0·076 g cm?2 year?1. On the Yermak Plateau slope the modern mass accumulation rate is 0·053 g cm?2 year?1. 相似文献
Some rare types of small clinoforms found in the latest continental deposits of lowland platform and mountain regions are described. The clinoforms are represented by prodelta deposits of mountain lakes, oblique-bedded horizons of floodplain alluvium of strongly meandering rivers, thick and short lenses of mountain alluvium, and alluvium horizons of great lowland rivers with oblique bedding grading into horizontal bedding. Such structures bear information on paleogeographic, morphological, and lithodynamic features of continental sedimentation. 相似文献
The Mordor Alkaline Igneous Complex (MAIC) is a composite intrusion comprising a body of syenite and a funnel-shaped layered
mafic–ultramafic intrusion of lamprophyric parentage, the Mordor Mafic–Ultramafic Intrusion or MMUI. The MMUI is highly unusual
among intrusions of lamprophyric or potassic parentage in containing primary magmatic platinum-group element (PGE)-enriched
sulfides. The MMUI sequence consists largely of phlogopite-rich pyroxenitic cumulates, with an inward dipping conformable
layer of olivine-bearing cumulates divisible into a number of cyclic units. Stratiform-disseminated sulfide accumulations
are of two types: disseminated layers at the base of cyclic units, with relatively high PGE tenors; and patchy PGE-poor disseminations
within magnetite-bearing upper parts of cyclic units. Sulfide-enriched layers at cycle bases contain anomalous platinum group
element contents with grades up to 1.5 g/t Pt+Pd+Au over 1-m intervals, returning to background values of low parts per billion
(ppb) on a meter scale. They correspond to reversals in normal fractionation trends and are interpreted as the result of new
magma influxes into a continuously replenished magma chamber. Basal layers have decoupled Cu and PGE peaks reflecting increasing
PGE tenors up-section, due to increasing R factors during the replenishment episode, or progressive mixing of between resident PGE-poor magma and more PGE-enriched
replenishing magma. The presence of PGE enriched sulfides in cumulates from a lamprophyric magma implies that low-degree partial
melts do not necessarily leave sulfides and PGEs in the mantle restite during partial melting.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. 相似文献
Combined fluid inclusion microthermometry and microanalysis by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry
(LA-ICPMS) are used to constrain the hydrothermal processes forming a typical Climax-type porphyry Mo deposit. Molybdenum
mineralisation at Questa occurred in two superimposed hydrothermal stages, a magmatic-hydrothermal breccia and later stockwork
veining. In both stages, texturally earliest fluids were single-phase, of low salinity (~7 wt.% NaClequiv.) and intermediate-density. Upon decompression to ~300 bar, they boiled off a vapour phase, leaving behind a residual brine
(up to 45 wt.% NaClequiv) at temperatures of ~420°C. The highest average Mo concentrations in this hot brine were ~500 μg/g, exceeding the Mo content
of the intermediate-density input fluid by about an order of magnitude and reflecting pre-concentration of Mo by fluid phase
separation prior to MoS2 deposition from the brine. Molybdenum concentrations in brine inclusions, then, decrease down to 5 μg/g, recording Mo precipitation
in response to cooling of the saline liquid to ~360°C. Molybdenite precipitation from a dense, residual and probably sulphide-depleted
brine is proposed to explain the tabular shape of the ore body and the absence of Cu-Fe sulphides in contrast to the more
common Cu-Mo deposits related to porphyry stocks. Cesium and Rb concentrations in the single-phase fluids of the breccia range
from 2 to 8 and from 40 to 65 μg/g, respectively. In the stockwork veins, Cs and Rb concentrations are significantly higher
(45–90 and 110–230 μg/g, respectively). Because Cs and Rb are incompatible and hydrothermally non-reactive elements, the systematic
increase in their concentration requires two distinct pulses of fluid exsolution from a progressively more fractionated magma.
By contrast, major element and ore metal concentrations of these two fluid pulses remain essentially constant. Mass balance
calculations using fluid chemical data from LA-ICPMS suggest that at least 25 km3 of melt and 7 Gt of deep input fluid were necessary to provide the amount of Mo contained in the stockwork vein stage alone.
While the absolute amounts of fluid and melt are uncertain, the well-constrained element ratios in the fluids together with
empirical fluid/melt partition coefficients derived from the inclusion analyses suggest a high water content of the source
melt of ~10%. In line with other circumstantial evidence, these results suggest that initial fluid exsolution may have occurred
at a confining pressure exceeding 5 kbar. The source of the molybdenum-mineralising fluids probably was a particularly large
magma chamber that crystallised and fractionated in the lower crust or at mid-crustal level, well below the shallow intrusions
immediately underlying Questa and other porphyry molybdenum deposits.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. 相似文献
The Draa Sfar mineralization consists of two main stratabound orebodies, Sidi M’Barek and Tazacourt, located north and south
of the Tensift River (“Oued Tessift”), respectively. Each orebody is comprised by at least two massive sulfide lenses. The
hosting rocks are predominantly black shales, although minor rhyolitic rocks are also present in the footwall to the southern
orebody. Shales, rhyolitic volcanic rocks, and massive sulfides are all included into the Sarhlef Series, which is recognized
as one of the main stratigraphic units of the Moroccan Variscan Meseta. Hydrothermal activity related with an anomalous thermal
gradient, together with a high sedimentation rate in a tectonically driven pull-apart marine basin, favored the accumulation
of organic-rich mud in the deepest parts of the basin and the sedimentary environment suitable for massive sulfide deposition
and preservation. This took place by replacement of the hosting unlithified wet mud below the sediment–water interface. Geochemical
data suggest a sedimentary environment characterized by oxic water column and anoxic sediment pile with the redox boundary
below the sediment–water interface. The low oxygen availability within the sediment pile inhibited oxidation and pyritization
of pyrrhotite. Biostratigraphic analysis, based on the palynological content of the hosting black shales, restricts the age
of the sulfides to the Asbian substage (mid-Mississippian). This age is consistent with earlier geochronological constraints. 相似文献
The stratiform Cu–Co ore mineralisation in the Katangan Copperbelt consists of dispersed sulphides and sulphides in nodules
and lenses, which are often pseudomorphs after evaporites. Two types of pseudomorphs can be distinguished in the nodules and
lenses. In type 1 examples, dolomite precipitated first and was subsequently replaced by Cu–Co sulphides and authigenic quartz,
whereas in type 2 examples, authigenic quartz and Cu–Co sulphides precipitated prior to dolomite and are coarse-grained. The
sulphur isotopic composition of the copper–cobalt sulphides in the type 1 pseudomorphs is between −10.3 and 3.1‰ relative
to the Vienna Canyon Diablo Troilite, indicating that the sulphide component was derived from bacterial sulphate reduction
(BSR). The generation of during this process caused the precipitation and replacement of anhydrite by dolomite. A second product of BSR is the generation
of H2S, resulting in the precipitation of Cu–Co sulphides from the mineralising fluids. Initial sulphide precipitation occurred
along the rim of the pseudomorphs and continued towards the core. Precipitation of authigenic quartz was most likely induced
by a pH decrease during sulphide precipitation. Fluid inclusion data from quartz indicate the presence of a high-salinity
(8–18 eq. wt.% NaCl) fluid, possibly derived from evaporated seawater which migrated through the deep subsurface. 87Sr/86Sr ratios of dolomite in type 1 nodules range between 0.71012 and 0.73576, significantly more radiogenic than the strontium
isotopic composition of Neoproterozoic marine carbonates (87Sr/86Sr = 0.7056–0.7087). This suggests intense interaction with siliciclastic sedimentary rocks and/or the granitic basement.
The low carbon isotopic composition of the dolomite in the pseudomorphs (−7.02 and −9.93‰ relative to the Vienna Pee Dee Belemnite,
V-PDB) compared to the host rock dolomite (−4.90 and +1.31‰ V-PDB) resulted from the oxidation of organic matter during BSR. 相似文献
The La Voluntad porphyry Cu–Mo deposit in Neuquén, Argentina, is one of several poorly known porphyry-type deposits of Paleozoic
to Early Jurassic age in the central and southern Andes. Mineralization at La Voluntad is related to a tonalite porphyry from
the Chachil Plutonic Complex that intruded metasedimentary units of the Piedra Santa Complex. Five new Re–Os molybdenite ages
from four samples representing three different vein types (i.e., quartz–molybdenite, quartz–sericite–molybdenite and quartz–sericite–molybdenite
± chalcopyrite–pyrite) are identical within error and were formed between ~312 to ~316 Ma. Rhenium and Os concentrations range
between 34 to 183 ppm and 112 to 599 ppb, respectively. The new Re–Os ages indicate that the main mineralization event at
La Voluntad, associated to sericitic alteration, was emplaced during a time span of 1.7 ± 3.2 Ma and that the deposit is Carboniferous
in age, not Permian as previously thought. La Voluntad is the oldest porphyry copper deposit so far recognized in the Andes
and indicates the presence of an active magmatic arc, with associated porphyry style mineralization, at the proto-Pacific
margin of Gondwana during the Early Pennsylvanian. 相似文献