Origin and alteration of oils and oil seeps from the Sinú-San Jacinto Basin, Colombia

Liquid hydrocarbons have been detected in the subsurface as well as in the surface in the Sinú-San Jacinto Basin (northwestern Colombia). The origin of the oils has not been conclusively established especially in the southern part of the basin. The most likely source rocks in the basin are the Ciénaga de Oro Fm. of the Oligocene-Early Miocene and the Cansona Fm. of the Upper Cretaceous. In this study, oil samples, seeps and source rock extracts were analyzed by GC and GC/MS, and δ¹³C was determined to identify the source facies. The sulphur content and gravity data were also considered.Two organic facies were identified: one constituted by terrestrial organic matter deposited in siliciclastic sediments in marginal marine to deltaic environments and the other made up of marine organic matter deposited in marine costal shelf to pelagic environments. The oils from the former organic facies have low sulphur contents, whereas the oils from the latter facies have high sulphur levels. Correlation of the oil seeps from the former facies with the Ciénaga de Oro Fm. has not been clearly established. The oil seeps from the latter facies correlate well with the extracts from the source rocks of the Cansona Fm., deposited along the fold belt of San Jacinto (east side). The oil seeps are affected by moderate to severe biodegradation, whereas the oil from the only oil producing well in the Sinú Basin (Floresanto-6 well) has not undergone biodegradation.     

黔西南卡林型金矿床与区域古油藏的关系:来自流体包裹体气相组成和沥青拉曼光谱特征的证据

黔西南地区是世界第二大卡林型金矿床集中区,同时也发育有大量古油藏,二者空间关系密切,但是否具有成因联系目前尚不清楚且存在较大争议。本文报道该区典型金矿床与成矿有关的热液矿物中流体包裹体的气相组成和高品位金矿石中沥青的激光拉曼光谱分析结果,以探讨含有机质流体与金成矿作用之间的关系。研究表明,虽然含砷富金黄铁矿、石英、方解石、萤石和雄黄等热液矿物形成于不同的成矿阶段,但其中流体包裹体的有机气相组分种类、含量及相对比例整体较为一致,表明成矿流体中的有机络离子团在成矿作用过程中没有发生明显的分解或重组,进而说明黔西南卡林型金矿成矿作用过程中有机质并未以有机络离子团的形式对金进行有效搬运或其搬运金的能力非常有限。在N2/Ar-CO2/CH4流体来源判别图解中,各蚀变矿物中的流体包裹体气相组成主要落在循环的大气降水区域,经大气水区域向岩浆流体区域延伸,整体上构成一条非常好的线性分布趋势,暗示成矿流体可能起源于深部岩浆但在演化过程中有大量循环大气水的加入。水银洞金矿床的1件石英样品偏离上述趋势线并向有机流体方向偏移,可能反映了流体迁移过程中有机质的加入。该区金矿床的矿石中均不同程度地发育浸染状沥青,不同矿床中沥青的激光拉曼光谱特征基本一致,说明该区金矿床中的沥青具有相同成因。根据沥青激光拉曼光谱特征地质温度计反演计算的成矿早阶段流体温度为317~336℃,明显高于区域古地温温度(160~250℃)以及区域古油藏的流体包裹体均一温度(73~175℃),说明该区卡林型金矿床的成矿热源与区域古地温无关。对区域地质及近年来地球物理与地球化学最新成果的综合分析表明,该区卡林型金矿床可能是叠加在区域古地温场之上的深部岩浆活动远端低温热液成矿作用的产物,与金矿床空间关系密切的有机质可能为来自先存古油藏并沿控矿构造发生逃逸的油气物质裂解产物,金成矿与区域古油藏之间不存在成因联系。     

Mobile phone use and livelihoods: qualitative evidence from some rural and urban areas in Ghana

In sub-Saharan Africa, the past two decades have witnessed a phenomenal increase in the use of mobile phones which has attracted diverse research. This paper explores mobile phone use and livelihood activities in some urban and rural areas of Ghana. Qualitative data were extracted from a larger study that covered 24 sites ranging from urban to remote rural locations in Ghana, Malawi and South Africa. The Sustainable Livelihood Framework provided guidance for the study. The main findings of the study indicate that mobile phones provide direct phone-related employment and indirectly enable some others to secure jobs through contact with friends/relations and also facilitate marketing of farm produce in terms of reduction in transaction cost, access to ready market and contacts for better prices for produce. Additionally, phone use enhances job organization through communication between apprentices and their bosses and also facilitates the migration process of some irregular migrants. As a livelihood capital, mobile phone has the potential to reduce vulnerability and improve upon people’s livelihood outcomes. There is therefore the need to make mobile phones more affordable, expand mobile phone network coverage and improve upon service quality to facilitate livelihood activities, particularly in rural areas of the country.     

Stable carbon isotopes of graphite from Bogala Mine,Sri Lanka

The ratios of the carbon isotopes ¹³C and ¹²C of twenty-four graphite samples from Bogala Mine, Sri Lanka have been determined. The graphites are isotopically very similar (mean value $\text{?7.76? °}{}^{13}\text{C}{}_{\mathrm{PDB}}$; range $\text{<2?}$). Three models for the biogenic or abiogenic origin of the graphite deposit are discussed.     

黑龙江嘉荫县乌云煤矿与白山头地质剖面地层时代归属

对黑龙江省嘉荫县乌云煤矿和白山头剖面的孢粉样品进行了研究,结果表明:乌云煤矿剖面孢粉组合中温带类型的花粉(主要为莫米粉属、拟桦粉属、胡桃粉属)含量较高,另外也有一定数量的热带—亚热带分子;白山头剖面的主要花粉类型包括与桦木科有关的三孔粉属及松粉属和杉粉属等裸子植物类型。通过对这些孢粉类型的分布时代进行分析并与其他孢粉组合进行对比,认为乌云煤矿剖面及白山头剖面中观察到的含孢粉地层的时代为古新世。     

A GIS-based Decision Support System for Typhoon Emergency Response in Taiwan

The effective response actions can significantly reduce the damage caused by disasters, but the emergency managers require plenty of information before setting up appropriate strategies. The data gathering and analyzing processes are complex and the time is constrained during emergency. A GIS-based decision support system was developed to enhance the emergency operations during typhoon attacks in Taiwan. The system integrates the real time rainfall monitor and forecast information, the hazard potential, and the basic spatial database to help the emergency managers making decisions efficiently.     

An Initial Guess for the Levenberg–Marquardt Algorithm for Conditioning a Stochastic Channel to Pressure Data

A standard procedure for conditioning a stochastic channel to well-test pressure data requires the minimization of an objective function. The Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm is a natural choice for minimization, but may suffer from slow convergence or converge to a local minimum which gives an unacceptable match of observed pressure data if a poor initial guess is used. In this work, we present a procedure to generate a good initial guess when the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm is used to condition a stochastic channel to pressure data and well observations of channel facies, channel thickness, and channel top depth. This technique yields improved computational efficiency when the Levenberg–Marquardt method is used as the optimization procedure for generating realizations of the model by the randomized maximum likelihood method.     

The giant Carlin gold province: a protracted interplay of orogenic, basinal, and hydrothermal processes above a lithospheric boundary

Northern Nevada hosts the only province that contains multiple world-class Carlin-type gold deposits. The first-order control on the uniqueness of this province is its anomalous far back-arc tectonic setting over the rifted North American paleocontinental margin that separates Precambrian from Phanerozoic subcontinental lithospheric mantle. Globally, most other significant gold provinces form in volcanic arcs and accreted terranes proximal to convergent margins. In northern Nevada, periodic reactivation of basement faults along this margin focused and amplified subsequent geological events. Early basement faults localized Devonian synsedimentary extension and normal faulting. These controlled the geometry of the Devonian sedimentary basin architecture and focused the discharge of basinal brines that deposited syngenetic gold along the basin margins. Inversion of these basins and faults during subsequent contraction produced the complex elongate structural culminations that characterize the anomalous mineral deposit “trends.” Subsequently, these features localized repeated episodes of shallow magmatic and hydrothermal activity that also deposited some gold. During a pulse of Eocene extension, these faults focused advection of Carlin-type fluids, which had the opportunity to leach gold from gold-enriched sequences and deposit it in reactive miogeoclinal host rocks below the hydrologic seal at the Roberts Mountain thrust contact. Hence, the vast endowment of the Carlin province resulted from the conjunction of spatially superposed events localized by long-lived basement structures in a highly anomalous tectonic setting, rather than by the sole operation of special magmatic or fluid-related processes. An important indicator of the longevity of this basement control is the superposition of different gold deposit types (e.g., Sedex, porphyry, Carlin-type, epithermal, and hot spring deposits) that formed repeatedly between the Devonian and Miocene time along the trends. Interestingly, the large Cretaceous Alaska–Yukon intrusion-related gold deposits (e.g., Fort Knox) are associated with the northern extension of the same lithospheric margin in the Selwyn basin, which experienced an analogous series of geologic events.     

Oxygen stable isotope fractionation behavior of cerussite and hydrocerussite: New results and reconciliation of the recent literature

Recent empirical and theoretical calculations of the temperature-dependant oxygen stable isotope fractionation behavior of cerussite have highlighted potential problems with earlier work on this topic. The synthetic cerussite which was used earlier by the lead author to determine fractionation factors was re-examined using energy dispersive X-ray analysis, and found to be internally contaminated with inclusions of the phase hydrocerussite at levels of 5-10% by volume. The volume of hydrocerussite present within the samples is not sufficient to explain the entire discrepancy between this work and the empirical and theoretical calculations made earlier by the second author of this paper. Regardless of the exact causes of experimental failure or kinetic effects, the hydrocerussite contamination and the difficulty of demonstrating that these experiments reached isotopic equilibrium suggest that the use of cerussite oxygen isotope fractionation factors determined by slow precipitation experiments be discontinued in favor of the empirically calibrated fractionation factor 1000 ln α_{cerussite-water} = 2.29(10⁶/T²) − 3.56. In addition, we have determined that the oxygen isotope fractionation factor between hydrocerussite and water at 20 °C is 1.0232.     

The geologic history of the passive margin off new england and the canadian maritime provinces

The geologic history of the passive continental margin off the east coast of North America from New England to Newfoundland is described using all available geological and geophysical information. “Rift” and “drift” phases of the margin's evolution are recognized, with rifting initiated in Late Triassic and completed by Early Jurassic. The plate decoupling process created a complex block-faulted terrain as a result of uplift and tensional fracturing. The approximate plane of continental separation is marked by a “hinge zone” characterized by a pronounced steepening of basement gradients. Since the Early Jurassic, the margin has undergone continual subsidence in response to cooling and sediment loading. This “drift” sequence attains its maximum thickness in the vicinity of the continental slope and thins both landward and seaward. On the shelf, this unit consists of Mesozoic evaporites, carbonates, and deltaic deposits. Overlying these sediments is a prograding wedge of Cenozoic elastics. On the rise, the Mesozoic sediments are evaporites, hemipelagic limestones and shales and carbonaceous clays. The Cenozoic is dominantly terrigenous material. Separating these two sedimentary provinces is the continental slope, a site of major facies changes and a Mesozoic reef complex.