U–Pb geochronology of the Western Channel Diabase,northwestern Laurentia: Implications for a large 1.59 Ga magmatic province,Laurentia's APWP and paleocontinental reconstructions of Laurentia,Baltica and Gawler craton of southern Australia

U–Pb baddeleyite ages of 1592 ± 3 and 1590 ± 4 Ma are reported for paleomagnetic sites in sheets and dykes of Western Channel Diabase (WCD) that intrude Proterozoic rocks of the flat-lying Hornby Bay Group in the Hornby Bay basin and the deformed volcanic-plutonic Great Bear Magmatic Zone of Wopmay orogen of northwestern Laurentia. A published WCD paleomagnetic pole at 9°N, 115°W (A₉₅ = 6°) has been demonstrated primary. The new ages indicate that the WCD pole falls midway in time between poles for the 1.74 Ga Cleaver dykes and 1.48–1.42 Ga Elsonian-aged plutons, filling an important gap in the Proterozoic apparent polar wander path (APWP) for Laurentia. The WCD pole can be compared with poles reported from similar-aged magmatic units on other cratons in order to test paleocontinental reconstructions. A comparison of the Laurentian WCD pole with primary ca. 1.63 Ga and ca. 1.575 Ga poles for Baltica, along with an earlier comparison of precisely dated 1.27–1.255 Ga poles for Laurentia and Baltica, suggests that the two cratonic blocks drifted as a single entity with Baltica adjacent to eastern Greenland during the ca. 1.59–1.27 Ga interval. On the basis of less well constrained ca. 1.84–1.83 Ga poles from Laurentia and Baltica, it is possible that this reconstruction existed as early as ca. 1.83 Ga. The WCD is the same age as Wernecke breccias of the Wernecke and Ogilvie Mountains of northwestern Laurentia and bimodal Gawler Range Volcanics (GRV) and related Olympic Dam breccias of the Gawler craton. It has been proposed by others that the Gawler craton lay adjacent to northwestern Laurentia at 1.59 Ga, with the Olympic Dam and Wernecke breccias forming a large hydrothermal province. The primary WCD pole provides an opportunity to test Laurentia–Gawler craton reconstructions at 1.59 Ga. A paleopole has been reported for the GRV, although its primary or secondary nature is open to interpretation. If primary, or if acquired as an overprint during the later stages of 1.60–1.58 Ga Hiltaba-GRV magmatism, then a position for the Gawler craton adjacent to northwestern Laurentia is permitted. If the GRV pole is a later secondary overprint then a reliable comparison with Laurentian poles cannot be made.     

Effects of Agriculture on Ground-Water Quality in Five Regions of the United States

Water-quality conditions in surficial unconsolidated aquifers were assessed in five agricultural regions in the United States. The assessment covers the Delmarva Peninsula, and parts of Long Island, Connecticut, Kansas, and Nebraska, and is based on water-quality and ancillary data collected during the 1980s. Concentrations of nitrate in ground water in these areas have increased because of applications of commercial fertilizers and manure. Nitrate concentrations exceed the maximum contaminant level (MCL) for drinking water of 10 milligrams per liter as nitrogen established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 12 to 46 percent of the wells sampled in the agricultural regions. Concentrations of nitrate are elevated within the upper 100 to 200 feet of the surficial aquifers. Permeable and sandy deposits that generally underlie the agricultural areas provide favorable conditions for vertical leaching of nitrate to relatively deep parts of the aquifers. The persistence of nitrate at such depths is attributed to aerobic conditions along ground-water-flow paths. Concentrations of nitrate are greatest in areas that are heavily irrigated or areas that are underlain by well-drained sediments; more fertilizer is typically applied on land with well-drained sediments than on poorly drained sediments because well-drained sediments have a low organic-matter content and low moisture capacity. Concentrations of other inorganic constituents related to agriculture, such as potassium and chloride from potash fertilizers, and calcium and magnesium from liming, also are significantly elevated in ground water beneath the agricultural areas. These constituents together impart a distinctive agricultural-chemical trademark to the ground water, different from natural water.     

Ozone as a stratospheric Lagrangian tracer

Published papers reporting the use of ozone as a tracer are reviewed, and we conclude, as have the authors themselves, that the results are limited by lack of data. The results of a Meteorological Office experiment in which soundings were made at 12-hour intervals from four stations are also reported. In the light of these we are of the opinion that little further progress is likely unless campaigns involving sixty stations and soundings every 3 hours can be launched. This would be a formidable undertaking, and raises the question of whether it would be worth the effort and expense. A more modest approach might be to use aircraft and balloons in conjunction.     

The role of liquid immiscibility in the genesis of carbonatites — An experimental study

The two-liquid field between alkali-carbonate liquids and phonolite or nephelinite magmas from the Oldoinyo Lengai volcano has been determined between 0.7 and 7.6 kb and 900°–1,250° C. The miscibility gap expands with increase in and decrease in temperature. Concomitantly there is a rotation of tie-lines so that the carbonate liquids become richer in CaO. The element distribution between the melts indicates that a carbonate liquid equivalent in composition to Oldoinyo Lengai natrocarbonatite lava would have separated from a phonolitic rather than a nephelinitic magma. CO₂-saturated nephelinites coexist with carbonate liquids much richer in CaO than the Lengai carbonatites, but even so these liquids have high alkali concentrations. If the sövites of hypabyssal and plutonic ijolite-carbonatite complexes originated by liquid immiscibility, then large quantities of alkalis have been lost, as is suggested by fenitization and related phenomena. The miscibility gap closes away from Na₂O-rich compositions, so that the tendency to exsolve a carbonatite melt is greater in salic than in mafic silicate magmas. The two-liquid field does not approach kimberlitic compositions over the range of pressures studied, suggesting that the globular textures observed in many kimberlite sills and dykes may be the result of processes other than liquid immiscibility at crustal pressures.     

Geology of the dry creek site; a stratified early man site in Interior Alaska

The Dry Creek archeologic site contains a stratified record of late Pleistocene human occupation in central Alaska. Four archeologic components occur within a sequence of multiple loess and sand layers which together form a 2-m cap above weathered glacial outwash. The two oldest components appear to be of late Pleistocene age and occur with the bones of extinct game animals. Geologic mapping, stratigraphic correlations, radiocarbon dating, and sediment analyses indicate that the basal loess units formed part of a widespread blanket that was associated with an arctic steppe environment and with stream aggradation during waning phases of the last major glaciation of the Alaska Range. These basal loess beds contain artifacts for which radiocarbon dates and typologic correlations suggest a time range of perhaps 12,000–9000 yr ago. A long subsequent episode of cultural sterility was associated with waning loess deposition and development of a cryoturbated tundra soil above shallow permafrost. Sand deposition from local source areas predominated during the middle and late Holocene, and buried Subarctic Brown Soils indicate that a forest fringe developed on bluff-edge sand sheets along Dry Creek. The youngest archeologic component, which is associated with the deepest forest soil, indicates intermittent human occupation of the site between about 4700 and 3400 ¹⁴C yr BP.     

A Nd isotope investigation of sediments related to crustal development in the British Isles

The times of original fractionation of the Sm and Nd component of clastic sediments from a mantle source (≡ crustal residence age) have been estimated from Sm-Nd model ages calculated relative to a depleted mantle evolution. In this way the provenance and evolution of selected Precambrian and Phanerozoic sediments and metasediments from the British Isles have been examined. Whereas some Archaean and early Proterozoic sediments have Sm-Nd model ages that are close to their stratigraphic age, the Phanerozoic sediments analysed have model ages as much as 2.0 Ga in excess of their stratigraphic age.A more detailed study of Lower Palaeozoic sediments deposited on the northern margin of the Iapetus Ocean provides evidence for a marked change of provenance in the Ordovician after the deposition of the Dalradian Supergroup. A component with comparatively high¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd and Sm/Nd ratio (presumably basaltic) is present in the sediments throughout the accretionary prism. Crustal residence age estimates average about 1.5 Ga for both these Lower Palaeozoic sediments, and modern pelagic clays, and collectively fail to provide any evidence for significant continental growth during the Phanerozoic.