Cooling of the Sverdrup Basin during Tertiary basin inversion: implications for hydrocarbon exploration

ABSTRACT The regional thermal history of the north‐eastern Sverdrup Basin, Canadian Arctic Archipelago, has been assessed using apatite fission‐track thermochronology and vitrinite reflectance data. Fission‐track data for 27 samples from six wells through the Mesozoic section on Axel Heiberg and Ellesmere Islands reveal significant Palaeocene cooling associated with basin inversion during the Eurekan Orogeny. Fission‐track data for 29 outcrop samples, ranging in stratigraphic age from Cambrian to Tertiary, also reveal significant Palaeocene cooling. Vitrinite reflectance data from carbonaceous shales and coal seams in well and outcrop samples are consistent with these conclusions. The degree of Palaeocene cooling observed is greatest for well and outcrop samples in the cores of anticlines or the hanging walls of thrust faults, such as the Fosheim anticline, and faults, such as the Lake Hazen fault system, and the East Cape and Vesle Fiord thrust faults. Palaeocene cooling is largely attributed to the denudation of structures during the Eurekan Orogeny. At one locality on north‐western Ellesmere Island, which is on the northern flank of the Sverdrup Basin, the underlying Franklinian basement rocks yield Early Cretaceous fission track ages with relatively long mean track lengths. This indicates that this part of the basin was uplifted at this time and that subsequent sedimentation and subsidence in the Cretaceous and early Tertiary were modest. This locality thus appears to be on the rift shoulder, which developed along the flank of the Amerasia Basin in the Lower Cretaceous. At a locality on western Axel Heiberg Island, which is downflank from the rift shoulder, the Upper Jurassic Awingak sandstone has a Late Cretaceous fission track age. This is best explained by heating above the total annealing temperature for fission‐tracks in apatite by extensive Lower Cretaceous intrusions and subsequent heat dissipation and cooling in the Late Cretaceous followed by further substantial cooling due to Tertiary denudation. These results indicate that maximum burial temperatures occurred in the presently exposed Mesozoic section prior to basin inversion during the Eurekan Orogeny. It can therefore be inferred that peak hydrocarbon generation and primary migration predated the formation of structural traps during the Tertiary at shallow depths within the northern Sverdrup Basin.     

Adaptive isogeometric finite element analysis of steady‐state groundwater flow

Numerical challenges occur in the simulation of groundwater flow problems because of complex boundary conditions, varying material properties, presence of sources or sinks in the flow domain, or a combination of these. In this paper, we apply adaptive isogeometric finite element analysis using locally refined (LR) B‐splines to address these types of problems. The fundamentals behind isogeometric analysis and LR B‐splines are briefly presented. Galerkin's method is applied to the standard weak formulation of the governing equation to derive the linear system of equations. A posteriori error estimates are calculated to identify which B‐splines should be locally refined. The error estimates are calculated based on recovery of the L₂‐projected solution. The adaptive analysis method is first illustrated by performing simulation of benchmark problems with analytical solutions. Numerical applications to two‐dimensional groundwater flow problems are then presented. The problems studied are flow around an impervious corner, flow around a cutoff wall, and flow in a heterogeneous medium. The convergence rates obtained with adaptive analysis using local refinement were, in general, observed to be of optimal order in contrast to simulations with uniform refinement. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

P,T paths of natural eclogites during metamorphism — a record of subduction

The distribution of iron and magnesium between coexisting garnet and clinopyroxene is expressed by the distribution coefficient K_D^ga-cpx. This coefficient has been experimentally determined as a function of temperature and pressure, and is used to determine the temperature of equilibration of natural eclogites.

The presence of relict zoning in both garnet and clinopyroxene in low to medium temperature eclogites permits evaluation of the P,T path followed by these rocks during prograde metamorphism.

The average P,T path for eclogites of blueschist terranes (type C eclogites) is suggested to be 40°C/Kb during prograde metamorphism. The Tasmanian eclogite (type B) records crystallization along a different P,T path (lower pressure at given temperature) from those of the type C eclogites. Eclogites from the migmatite-gneiss terrances of Poland and Norway do not preserve evidence of prograde metamorphism in mineral zoning but indicate higher temperatures at the metamorphic maximum; pressures were similar to those attained by type C eclogites.     

Long-term ice sheet–climate interactions under anthropogenic greenhouse forcing simulated with a complex Earth System Model

Several multi-century and multi-millennia simulations have been performed with a complex Earth System Model (ESM) for different anthropogenic climate change scenarios in order to study the long-term evolution of sea level and the impact of ice sheet changes on the climate system. The core of the ESM is a coupled coarse-resolution Atmosphere–Ocean General Circulation Model (AOGCM). Ocean biogeochemistry, land vegetation and ice sheets are included as components of the ESM. The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) decays in all simulations, while the Antarctic ice sheet contributes negatively to sea level rise, due to enhanced storage of water caused by larger snowfall rates. Freshwater flux increases from Greenland are one order of magnitude smaller than total freshwater flux increases into the North Atlantic basin (the sum of the contribution from changes in precipitation, evaporation, run-off and Greenland meltwater) and do not play an important role in changes in the strength of the North Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (NAMOC). The regional climate change associated with weakening/collapse of the NAMOC drastically reduces the decay rate of the GrIS. The dynamical changes due to GrIS topography modification driven by mass balance changes act first as a negative feedback for the decay of the ice sheet, but accelerate the decay at a later stage. The increase of surface temperature due to reduced topographic heights causes a strong acceleration of the decay of the ice sheet in the long term. Other feedbacks between ice sheet and atmosphere are not important for the mass balance of the GrIS until it is reduced to 3/4 of the original size. From then, the reduction in the albedo of Greenland strongly accelerates the decay of the ice sheet.     

Experimental determination of the temperature and pressure dependence of the Fe-Mg partition coefficient for coexisting garnet and clinopyroxene

An experimental study initiated to calibrate the distribution coefficient \(K_D = \frac{{({\text{FeO}}/{\text{MgO}})_{{\text{ga}}} }}{{{\text{(FeO}}/{\text{MgO)}}_{{\text{cpx}}} }}\) in eclogites as a geothermometer has been done on (a) a mineral mis, (b) a glass of the typical tholeiite composition and (c) a series of glasses of tholeiite compositions with \(6.2 < \frac{{100{\text{Mg}}}}{{{\text{Mg}} + {\text{Fe}}^{ + + } }} < 93.\) The mineral mix was found to be unsuitable as reactant due to incomplete equilibration but the minimum K _D of the mineral mix and the K _D from glass of tholeiite composition are identical within experimental uncertainty. These data constitute a reversal of the garnet/clinopyroxene partition relationship and provide justification of the use of glass as a reactant for the project. To eliminate any uncertainty in interpretation of mineral analyses due to possible variation in Fe⁺⁺⁺/Fe⁺⁺ between runs, experiments were carried out in iron capsules on the nine tholeiite glasses, thus maintaining iron as Fe⁺⁺. Microprobe analytical techniques yielded mineral analyses of comparable accuracy to analyses of natural phases for experiments within the temperature range from 600° C to 1500° C and a pressure range from 20 kb to 40 kb. It has been shown that for \(6.2 < \frac{{100{\text{Mg}}}}{{{\text{Mg}} + {\text{Fe}}^{ + + } }} < 85\) , the bulk chemical composition does not perceptibly affect the K _D value. At 30 kb the K _D value ranges from 18.0 at 600° C to 1.45 at 1400° C, defining the linear relationship in a ln K _D vs 1/T(°K) plot. The pressure dependence of the K _D -value has been shown to be greater than previously predicted. There is a straight line relationship in ln K _D vs Pressure (Kb) between 20 and 40 kb at constant temperature (1100°C). This enables us to determine K _D =fn (T, P) and \(T(^\circ {\text{K}}) = \frac{{3686 + 28.35 \times P({\text{Kb}})}}{{\ln K_D + 2.33}}\) . This expression uniquely determines the temperature of equilibration of natural eclogites of basaltic bulk composition when the K _D ^ga,cpx is known and a pressure estimate can be given.     

Palaeomagnetism and K-Ar Ages of the South-west African Basalts and their Bearing on the Time of Initial Rifting of the South Atlantic Ocean

Summary. Palaeomagnetic and isotopic results from the Kaoko lavas, Hoachanas basalts and dolerite sills of South-West Africa indicate that the Upper Triassic-Lower Jurassic Stormberg flows of South Africa may have extended into SW-Africa and that younger igneous events of Lower Cretaceous age were simultaneous with the Serra Geral volcanism in Brazil. Five analyses on three samples of the Keetmanshoop sills gave K-Ar ages between 178 ± 4 and 199 ± 4 Ma, four analyses of two samples of the Hoachanas basalts gave ages between 161 ± 3 and 173 ± 2 Ma and eight analyses of five samples of Kaoko basalt gave ages between 110±4 and 128 ± 2 Ma.
The components of remanent magnetization (RM) used to compute palaeomagnetic pole positions for the Kaoko lavas (48° N, 93° W, A95 = 3°) and for the Hoachanas basalts (61° N, 106° W, A95 = 7° are stable to alternating field (AF) and thermal demagnetization.
Correlation on a pre-drift map and on a map reconstructed for 112 Ma BP (before present) between the palaeomagnetic poles from the Kaoko and Serra Geral lavas suggests that the South Atlantic had not opened appreciably by 112 Ma BP. Cretaceous pole positions for S. America and Africa on a map reconstructed for 80 Ma BP are also discussed.     

Wave-trains in the solar wind

Applying an Alfvén-Wave-Extended-QRH-approximation and the method of characteristics, we solve the equations of motion for outwardly propagating Alfvén waves analytically for three different cases of an azimuthal dependence of the background solar wind, (a) for a pure fast-slow stream configuration, (b) for the situation where the high-speed stream originates from a diverging magnetic field region, and (c) for the case of (b) and an initially decreasing density configuration (‘coronal hole’). The reaction of these waves on the background state as well as mode-mode coupling effects are neglected. These three solar wind models are discussed shortly. For the superimposed Alfvén waves we find, on an average, that there is a strong azimuthal dependence of all relevant wave parameters which, correlated with the azimuthal distributions of the solar wind variables, leads to good agreements with observations. The signature of high-speed streams and these correlations could clearly indicate solar wind streams originating from ‘coronal holes’. Contrary to the purely radial dependent solar wind, where outwardly propagating Alfvén waves are exclusively refracted towards the radial direction, we now find a refraction nearly perpendicular to the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field in the compression region and closely towards the magnetic field direction down the trailing edge and in the low-speed regime.     

The crustal evolution of South America from a zircon Hf‐isotope perspective

Hf‐isotope data of >1100 detrital zircon grains from the Palaeozoic, south‐central Andean Gondwana margin record the complete crustal evolution of South America, which was the predominant source. The oldest grains, with crustal residence ages of 3.8–4.0 Ga, are consistent with complete recycling of existing continental crust around 4 Ga. We confirm three major Archaean, Palaeoproterozoic (Transamazonian) and late Mesoproterozoic to early Neoproterozoic crust‐addition phases as well as six igneous phases during Proterozoic to Palaeozoic time involving mixing of juvenile and crustally reworked material. A late Mesoproterozoic to early Neoproterozoic, Grenville‐age igneous belt can be postulated along the palaeo‐margin of South America. This belt was the basement for later magmatic arcs and accreted allochthonous microcontinents as recorded by similar crustal residence ages. Crustal reworking likely dominated over juvenile addition during the Palaeozoic era, and Proterozoic and Archaean zircon was mainly crustally reworked from the eroding, thickened Ordovician Famatinian arc.