Age and geochemistry of zircon from the oldest metamorphic rocks of the Omolon Massif (Northeast Russia)

This study provides SHRIMP-RG data on zircons from garnet gedritites, the products of retrograde metamorphism of eclogite-like rocks constituting belonging to the basement of the Omolon Massif. The earliest episode recorded by oscillatory-zoned cores having high HREE and Ti contents occurred at 3.25–3.22 Ga (Paleoarchean) and is interpreted to represent an upper age limit of a metamorphic or magmatic protolith. One zircon core with a pronounced negative Eu anomaly yielded a concordant age of 2.6 Ga, which is interpreted to mark a Neoarchean episode of granite formation. The studied population of zircons provides the most distinct record of a Paleoproterozoic (1.9 Ga) event, which is marked by formation of garnet gedritites under amphibolite-facies conditions. This event is recorded by transparent recrystallization rims of preexisting large zircon grains and small newly-formed grains, which are characterized, compared with their cores, by lower crystallization temperatures and one order of magnitude lower concentrations of U, Th, and HREE, and the presence of garnet micro-inclusions.     

Accretion tectonics and crustal structure in Alaska

The entire width of the North American Cordillera in Alaska is made up of “suspect terranes”. Pre-Late Cretaceous paleogeography is poorly constrained and the ultimate origins of the many fragments which make up the state are unclear. The Prince William and Chugach terranes accreted since Late Cretaceous time and represent the collapse of much of the northeast Pacific Ocean swept into what today is southern Alaska. Greater Wrangellia, a composite terrane now dispersed into fragments scattered from Idaho to southern Alaska, apparently accreted into Alaska in Late Cretaceous time crushing an enormous deep-marine flysch basin on its inboard side. Most of interior eastern Alaska is the Yukon Tanana terrane, a very large entirely fault-bounded metamorphic-plutonic assemblage covering thousands of square kilometers in Canada as well as Alaska. The original stratigraphy and relationship to North America of the Yukon-Tanana terrane are both obscure. A collapsed Mesozoic flysch basin, similar to the one inboard of Wrangellia, lies along the northern margin. Much of Arctic Alaska was apparently a vast expanse of upper Paleozoic to Early Mesozoic deep marine sediments and mafic volcanic and plutonic rocks now scattered widely as large telescoped sheets and Klippen thrust over the Ruby geanticline and the Brooks Range, and probably underlying the Yukon-Koyukuk basin and the Yukon flats. The Brooks Range itself is a stack of north vergent nappes, the telescoping of which began in Early Cretaceous time. Despite compelling evidence for thousands of kilometers of relative displacement between the accreted terranes, and large amounts of telescoping, translation, and rotation since accretion, the resulting new continental crust added to North America in Alaska carries few obvious signatures that allow application of currently popular simple plate tectonic models. Intraplate telescoping and strike-slip translations, delamination at mid-crustal levels, and large-scale lithospheric wedging were important processes in northern Cordilleran tectonic evolution.     

基于生态足迹的区域生态适度人口研究——以新疆生产建设兵团为例

适度人口取决于生态、经济和土地等多要素的综合承载力。介绍了生态足迹模型的基本概念和计算方法,并运用该模型对兵团1995—2008年的生态足迹和生态承载力进行了计算,在此基础上对兵团的1995—2010年的生态适度人口进行了估算。结果表明,1995—1999年兵团的实际人口虽然在增加,但相对于生态适度人口并没有出现过剩;2000—2010年兵团生态适度人口在不断下降,实际人口和过剩人口却在不断增加。兵团目前已经出现了过度人口和生态赤字,人地矛盾相对紧张,生态适度人口规模是不合理的。     

Wollastonite at Nuliyam,Kerala, southern India: a reassessment of CO2-infiltration and charnockite formation at a classic locality

The occurrence of a charnockitised felsic gneiss adjacent to a marble/calc-silicate horizon at Nuliyam, southern India, has been cited in recent literature as a classic example of the dehydration of crustal rocks resulting from the advective infiltration of CO₂-rich fluids generated from a local carbonate source. Petrographic study of the Nuliyam calc-silicate, however, reveals it to consist of abundant wollastonite and scapolite and contain locally discordant veins rich in wollastonite. At the pressure—temperature conditions proposed for charnockite formation in recent studies, 5 kbar and 725°C, this wollastonite-bearing mineral assemblage was stable in the presence of a fluid phase only if X _CO2 was near 0.25 and could not have coexisted with the fluid causing biotite breakdown and charnockite development in adjacent rocks (X _CO2>0.85). The stable coexistence of wollastonite and scapolite prohibits the calc-silicate from being a source for fluid driving charnockitisation at the required P-T conditions. Textural observations such as the limited replacement of wollastonite by calcite+quartz symplectites and mosaics, are consistent with late fluid infiltration into the calc-silicate. The extensive isotopic, chemical and mineral abundance data of Jackson and Santosh (1992) are re-interpreted and integrated with these observations to develop a model involving the infiltration of an externally derived CO₂-rich fluid during high-temperature decompression. Increased charnockite development next to the calc-silicate has arisen because the calc-silicate acted as a relatively unreactive and impermeable barrier to fluid transport and caused fluid ponding beneath antiformal closures. The Nuliyam charnockite/calc-silicate locality is an example of a structural trap in a metamorphic setting rather than a site where charnockite formation can be attributed to local fluid sources.     

ESRO-1 AND ESRO-4: A model of the U.T. effect in electron density at middle latitudes of the southern hemisphere

The electron density observations made using ESRO-1 and ESRO-4 near solar maximum and solar minimum, respectively, show a strong longitudinal variation at middle latitudes in the southern hemisphere. The peak of this sinusoidal variation occurs at around 7 hr U.T. and decreases exponentially in size from about 300 km (depending on local time, season, solar flux) with increasing or decreasing altitude. During local summer conditions the amplitude is larger than during local winter conditions and particularly high values occur near the solar maximum. Selecting data from magnetically quiet periods, a quantitative model is constructed of the UT-eflect in the topside electron densities.     

The sedimentary and tectonic evolution of the Amur River and North Sakhalin Basin: new evidence from seismic stratigraphy and Neogene–Recent sediment budgets

The North Sakhalin Basin in the western Sea of Okhotsk has been the main site of sedimentation from the Amur River since the Early Miocene. In this article, we present regional seismic reflection data and a Neogene–Recent sediment budget to constrain the evolution of the basin and its sedimentary fill, and consider the implications for sediment flux from the Amur River, in particular testing models of continental‐scale Neogene drainage capture. The Amur‐derived basin‐fill history can be divided into five distinct stages: the first Amur‐derived sediments (>21–16.5 Ma) were deposited during a period of transtension along the Sakhalin‐Hokkaido Shear Zone, with moderately high sediment flux to the basin (71 Mt year^?1). The second stage sequence (16.5–10.4 Ma) was deposited following the cessation of transtension, and was characterised by a significant reduction in sediment flux (24 Mt year^?1) and widespread retrogradation of deltaic sediments. The third (10.4–5.3 Ma) and fourth (5.3–2.5 Ma) stages were characterised by progradation of deltaic sediments and an associated increase in sediment flux (48–60 Mt year^?1) to the basin. Significant uplift associated with regional transpression started during this time in southeastern Sakhalin, but the north‐eastward propagating strain did not reach the NE shelf of Sakhalin until the Pleistocene (<2.5 Ma). This uplift event, still ongoing today, resulted in recycling of older deltaic sediments from the island of Sakhalin, and contributed to a substantially increased total sediment flux to the adjacent basinal areas (165 Mt year^?1). Adjusted rates to discount these local erosional products (117 Mt year^?1) imply an Amur catchment‐wide increase in denudation rates during the Late Pliocene–Pleistocene; however, this was likely a result of global climatic and eustatic effects, combined with tectonic processes within the Amur catchment and possibly a smaller drainage capture event by the Sungari tributary, rather than continental‐scale drainage capture involving the entire upper Amur catchment.     

巴丹吉林沙漠周边地区降水量的时空变化特征

分析了巴丹吉林沙漠周边17个常规气象测站1951—2005年的逐月降水量及沙尘暴频次和东亚夏季风指数。(1)沙漠周边地区降水量的空间分布明显受地形影响:紧靠沙漠的区域地势低、干旱,各季降水量都小;沙漠外围较远处(特别是受祁连山影响的西南边)地势高、湿润,各季降水量都大;地形增高会使降水量增多1个量级以上,但对其季节配额无明显影响。夏季降水量配额最大,平均高达61.6%。(2)依据各站降水量年际变化间的相关系数及测站间的地域关系和地貌相似程度,可将该区域划为4个分区:一为地势较低、紧挨沙漠、极为干旱的沙漠西北缘区,二为气候较湿、受祁连山影响的沙漠西南缘区(或称祁连山影响区),三为位于巴丹吉林沙漠和腾格里沙漠之间的民勤区,四为远离沙漠、但与其周边地区地貌相似的沙漠东侧区。(3)1951—2005年的各个年代,4个分区各季降水量由大到小的顺序均为:祁连山影响区、沙漠东侧区、民勤区和沙漠西北缘区,与其平均海拔由高到低的顺序一致;就各季降水量及其配额的年代际演变位相而言,祁连山影响区可以代表整个区域。(4)1971—2005年各分区年降水量呈增大趋势,春季降水量增加尤为显著(增幅约为0.41mm·a-1),夏季降水量有减小趋势;随海拔增高,春季及年降水量增幅加大,夏季降水量减幅减小;祁连山影响区对全区年降水量增大的贡献最大。(5)各季及年降水量与东亚夏季风的强弱间均呈复相关;其中冬、夏季及年降水量与夏季风间的负相关随海拔升高而加大,说明夏季风对沙漠以南高海拔处的降水影响更为显著。(6)各季沙尘暴与降水量间以负相关为主,各分区冬、春季降水量偏多时,其冬、春季及夏季沙尘暴的发生频次一般偏少。