Geometric selection in two-dimensional crystal aggregates

The simultaneous growth of randomly oriented crystals nucleated at a surface rapidly produces a coarsely crystalline radial or columnar aggregate possessing a strong preferred shape and lattice orientation. Such textures are common in natural crystalline aggregates and are considered to arise because those crystals having their fastest growth direction normal to the initial substrate outdistance and eventually eliminate their less favorably oriented neighbors. In its simplest form the process of elimination is a purely geometric phenomenon. Detailed analysis and computer simulation of textural changes accompanying geometric selection in random two dimensional needlelike crystal aggregates demonstrate that selection initially proceeds exceedingly rapidly but slows drastically once roughly 90 percent of the crystals originally present are eliminated. Subsequent decrease in crystal density is inversely proportional to the square root of the distance from the initial substrate. Increases in crystal size larger than one or two orders of magnitude are thus unlikely to arise in natural crystalline aggregates in which only simple geometric selection is involved.     

Participatory modeling in dairy farm systems: a method for building consensual environmental sustainability using seasonal climate forecasts

Dairy farmers face increasing pressure to decrease environmental impact while remaining economically viable. Adaptation of farm management practices in response to seasonal climate forecasts may be one means of achieving these objectives. This paper describes the interactive and iterative process by which farmers, researchers, extension agents, regulatory agencies, and other stakeholders collaborated to create, calibrate, and validate the Dynamic North Florida Dairy Farm model (DyNoFlo), a whole-farm decision support system to decrease nitrogen leaching while maintaining profitability under variable climate conditions. Participatory modeling may enhance the creation of adoptable and adaptable user-friendly models that include environmental, economic and biophysical components. By providing farmers, policy makers, and other stakeholders with a more holistic view of current practices, common ground among them was more easily identified and collaboration was fostered. Farmer values included willingness to be good environmental stewards when they are profitable. The participatory research and development process enhanced understanding of and potential adaptation to seasonal climate variability conditioned to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phases in light of increasing environmental regulations and economic challenges. Adoption of the collaboratively-developed DyNoFlo is expected to be higher than usual because stakeholders feel greater ownership of the final product.     

Magnetic zones of Mars: Deformation‐controlled origin of magnetic anomalies

Abstract— Intense magnetic anomalies over Martian surface suggest preservation of large volumes of very old crust (>3 Gyr) that formed in the presence of a global magnetic field. The global distribution of the magnetic intensities observed above the Martian crust suggests a division into three zones. Zone 1 is where the magnetic signature is negligible or of relatively low intensity at Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) satellite mapping altitude (400 km). Zone 2 is the region of intermediate crustal magnetic amplitudes and zone 3 is where the highest magnetic intensities are measured. Crater demagnetization near zone 3 reveals the presence of rocks with both high magnetic intensity and coercivity. Magnetic analyses of terrestrial rocks show that compositional banding in orogenic zones significantly enhances both magnetic coercivity and thermal remanent magnetization (TRM) efficiency. Such enhancement offers a novel explanation for the anomalously large intensities inferred of magnetic sources on Mars. We propose that both large magnetic coercivity and intensity near the South Pole is indicative of the presence of a large degree of deformation. Associated compositional zoning creates conditions for large scale magnetic anisotropy allowing magnetic minerals to acquire magnetization more efficiently, thereby causing the distinct magnetic signatures in zone 3, expressed by intense magnetic anomalies. We use a simple model to verify the magnetic enhancement. We hypothesize that magnetically enhanced zone would reside over the down welling plume at the time of magnetization acquisition.     

Thallium isotopes as a potential tracer for the origin of cratonic eclogites

Cratonic eclogites are inferred to originate either from subducted ocean crust or mantle melts accreted onto the roots of continents. These models have different implications for the growth of continents, but it is currently difficult to determine the origin of individual eclogite suites.Upper ocean crust altered at low temperatures and marine sediments both display high thallium (Tl) concentrations and strongly fractionated Tl isotope signatures relative to the ambient upper mantle. In this study we carry out the first examination of the suitability of Tl isotopes as a tracer for an ocean-crust origin of cratonic eclogites. We have analysed the Tl isotope composition of clinopyroxene and garnet in six eclogites from the Kaalvallei and Bellsbank kimberlite pipes in South Africa. Minerals were pre-cleaned with an HCl leaching technique and the leachates display variably light Tl isotope ratios. These most likely reflect low-temperature hydrothermal alteration occurring after eruption of the kimberlite that carried the eclogites to the surface.The leached mineral pairs all display identical Tl isotope ratios, strongly suggesting that the source of the analysed Tl is identical for each mineral pair. It is, however, not possible to exclude the possibility that the analysed Tl originates from kimberlitic material that was not removed by the cleaning procedure.Only one of the six samples exhibits a Tl isotope composition different from ambient mantle. Assuming that the Tl isotope signatures indeed represent the eclogite minerals and not any form of contamination, the Tl isotope composition in this sample is consistent with containing a minor component (<3%) of ocean crust altered at low temperatures.Thallium isotopes may become one of the most sensitive indicators for the presence of low-T altered ocean crust because of the stark contrast in Tl concentration and isotopic composition between the mantle and altered ocean crust. In fact, no other chemical or isotopic tracer could have provided an indication that any of the samples studied here had a subduction origin. However, much work is still required before it becomes clear if Tl isotope measurements are a viable means to establish the origin of cratonic eclogites.     

Sulfides in mantle peridotites from Penghu Islands, Taiwan: Melt percolation, PGE fractionation, and the lithospheric evolution of the South China block

Major elements, highly siderophile elements (HSE) and Re-Os isotope ratios were analysed in situ on individual sulfide grains in spinel peridotite xenoliths hosted by Miocene intraplate basalts from the Penghu Islands, Taiwan. The xenoliths represent texturally and compositionally different mantle domains, and the geochemical characteristics of the sulfides show changes in HSE distribution and Re-Os isotope systematics, produced as their host rocks were metasomatised by percolating fluids/melts. In prophyroclastic and partly metasomatised peridotites from the Kueipi (KP) locality, the sulfides have subchondritic to superchondritic ¹⁸⁷Re/¹⁸⁸Os and ¹⁸⁷Os/¹⁸⁸Os ratios. Many of these sulfides reflect fluid/melt interaction with residual MSS and/or crystallization of fractionated sulfide melts, which produced high contents of Cu and PPGEs and high Re/Os; inferred melt/rock ratios are low. In contrast, sulfides in equigranular and extensively metasomatised peridotites from the Tungchiyu (TCY) locality are mainly more sulfur-rich Ni-(Co)-rich MSS, with subchondritic to chondritic ¹⁸⁷Os/¹⁸⁸Os and subchondritic ¹⁸⁷Re/¹⁸⁸Os. These sulfides are interpreted as products of interaction between pre-existing MSS and percolating silicate melts. Melt/rock ratios were high and the percolating melt was less differentiated than the melt that percolated the KP peridotites. Sulfides in a TCY pyroxenite are mainly MSS; they have the lowest HSE contents, subchondritic to superchondritic ¹⁸⁷Os/¹⁸⁸Os and subchondritic ¹⁸⁷Re/¹⁸⁸Os, and may have precipitated from sulfide melts that segregated from basaltic melts under S-saturated conditions. In most sulfides melt percolation appears to have induced fractionation among the HSEs and disturbed Re-Os isotope compositions. Despite the metasomatic effects, rare residual MSS, sulfides that from crystallised sulfide melts and sulfides modified by addition of Re (with no evidence for Os addition) can still provide useful chronological information. Such sulfides yield T_RD age peaks of 1.9, 1.7-1.6, 1.4-1.3 and 0.9-0.8 Ga, which may record the timing of melt extraction and/or metasomatic events in the mantle. These periods are contemporaneous with the major crustal events recorded by U-Pb dates and Nd and Hf model ages in the overlying crust. This close correspondence indicates that the sulfide T_RD ages reflect the timing of lithosphere-scale tectonothermal events (such as melting and metasomatism) that affected both the lithospheric mantle and the overlying crust. The sulfide T_RD ages, taken together with the crustal data, suggest that most of the Cathaysia block had formed at least by Paleo-Proterozoic time, and that some domains are Archean in age.     

Significance of ancient sulfide PGE and Re–Os signatures in the mantle beneath Calatrava,Central Spain

Spinel lherzolite and wehrlite xenoliths from the Cenozoic Calatrava volcanic field carry the geochemical imprint of metasomatic agents that have affected the subcontinental lithospheric mantle beneath Central Iberia. Some xenoliths (mainly wehrlites) were enriched in REE, Sr, P, and CO₂ by silicic-carbonate-rich metasomatic melts/fluids, while others record the effects of subduction-related hydrous silicate fluids that have precipitated amphibole and induced high Ti/Eu in primary clinopyroxene. The petrographic observations and geochemical data suggest that interstitial glass in the xenoliths represent the quenched products of Si-rich melts that infiltrated the mantle peridotite shortly before the entrainment of the xenoliths in the host magmas that erupted ca 2 million years ago. During their infiltration, the metasomatic melts reacted with peridotite, resulting in silica enrichment, while remobilizing grains of iron-rich monosulfide solid solution (Fe-rich Mss) initially enclosed in, or intergranular to, primary olivine and pyroxenes. In situ laser ablation inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry analysis of single sulfide grains reveals that the Fe-rich Mss in glass shows platinum-group element (PGE) patterns and ¹⁸⁷Os/¹⁸⁸Os compositions identical to the Fe-rich Mss occurring as inclusions in, or at grain boundaries of primary silicates. Moreover, independent of its microstructural position, Fe-rich Mss exhibits PGE and ¹⁸⁷Os/¹⁸⁸Os signatures typical of Mss either residual after partial melting or crystallized directly from sulfide melts. Our findings reveal that young metasomatic melt(s)/fluid(s) may carry remobilized sulfides with PGE and Os-isotopic signatures identical to those of texturally older sulfides in the peridotite xenolith. These sulfides thus still provide useful information about the timing and nature of older magmatic events in the subcontinental mantle.     

A new form of the cokriging equations

Myers developed a matrix form of the cokriging equations, but one that entails the solution of a large system of linear equations. Large systems are troublesome because of memory requirements and a general increase in the matrix condition number. We transform Myers’s system into a set of smaller systems, whose solution gives the classical kriging results, and provides simultaneously a nested set of lower dimensional cokriging results. In the course of developing the new formulation we make an interesting link to the Cauchy-Schwarz condition for the invertibility of a system, and another to a simple situation of coregionalization. In addition, we proceed from these new equations to a linear approximation to the cokriging results in the event that the crossvariograms are small, allowing one to take advantage of a recent results of Xie and others which proceeds by diagonalizing the variogram matrix function over the lag classes.     

Mantle plumes from top to bottom

Hotspots include midplate features like Hawaii and on-axis features like Iceland. Mantle plumes are a well-posed hypothesis for their formation. Starting plume heads provide an explanation of brief episodes of flood basalts, mafic intrusions, and radial dike swarms. Yet the essence of the hypothesis hides deep in the mantle. Tests independent of surface geology and geochemistry to date have been at best tantalizing. It is productive to bare the current ignorance, rather than to dump the plume hypothesis. One finds potentially fruitful lines of inquiry using simple dynamics and observations. Ancient lithospheric xenoliths may reveal heating by plumes and subsequent thermal equilibration in the past. The effect at the base of the chemical layer is modest 50-100 K for transient heating by plume heads. Thinning of nonbuoyant platform lithosphere is readily observed but not directly attributable to plumes. The plume history in Antarctica is ill constrained because of poor geological exposure. This locality provides a worst case on what is known about surface evidence of hotspots. Direct detection of plume tail conduits in the mid-mantle is now at the edge of seismic resolution. Seismology does not provide adequate resolution of the deep mantle. We do not know the extent of a chemically dense dregs layer or whether superplume regions are cooler or hotter than an adiabat in equilibrium with the asthenosphere. Overall, mid-mantle seismology is most likely to give definitive results as plume conduits are the guts of the dynamic hypothesis. Finding them would bring unresolved deep and shallow processes into place.