Josephinite: Crystal structures and phase relations of the metals

Josephinite, a complex, metal-bearing rock from the region of the Josephine Peridotite in southwest Oregon, contains FeNiCo metal alloy phases having exsolution textures. Scanning and transmission electron microscopy have revealed Widmanstaetten patterns in which the lamellae are polysynthetically twinned, ordered, face-centered-cubic FeNi₃ surrounded by untwinned, ordered, face-centered-cubic FeNi₃ and body-centered-cubic FeCo. These exsolution textures require a temperature in excess of 500°C for their formation. This is consistent with a mantle derivation of josephinite prior to obduction of the peridotite in one of the Klamath ophiolites.     

Rare earth element distribution in some hydrothermal minerals: evidence for crystallographic control

Rare earth element (REE) abundances were measured by neutron activation analysis in anhydrite (CaSO₄), barite (BaSO₄), siderite (FeCO₃) and galena (PbS). A simple crystal-chemical model qualitatively describes the relative affinities for REE substitution in anhydrite, barite, and siderite. When normalized to ‘crustal’ abundances (as an approximation to the hydrothermal fluid REE pattern), log REE abundance is a surprisingly linear function of (ionic radius of major cation—ionic radius of REE)² for the three hydrothermal minerals, individually and collectively. An important exception, however, is Eu, which is anomalously enriched in barite and depleted in siderite relative to REE of neighboring atomic number and trivalent ionic radius. In principle, REE analyses of suitable pairs of co-existing hydrothermal minerals, combined with appropriate experimental data, could yield both the REE content and the temperature of the parental hydrothermal fluid.The REE have only very weak chalcophilic tendencies, and this is reflected by the very low abundances in galena—La, 0.6 ppb; Sm, 0.06 ppb; the remainder are below detection limits.     

Mineral-solution equilibria—III. The system Na2OAl2O3SiO2H2OHCl

Chemical equilibrium between sodium-aluminum silicate minerals and chloride bearing fluid has been experimentally determined in the range 500–700°C at 1 kbar, using rapid-quench hydrothermal methods and two modifications of the Ag + AgCl acid buffer technique. The temperature dependence of the thermodynamic equilibrium constant (K) for the reaction $\text{NaAlSi}{}_3\text{O}{}_8\text{+ HCl}{}^{\mathrm{o}}\text{= NaCl}{}^{\mathrm{o}}\text{+}\text{1}\text{2Al}{}_2\text{SiO}{}_5\text{, +}\text{5}\text{2SiO}{}_2\text{+}\text{1}\text{2H}{}_2\text{O}$ Albite Andalusite Qtz. can be described by the following equation: log k = ?4.437 + 5205.6/T(K) The data from this study are consistent with experimental results reported by Montoya and Hemley (1975) for lower temperature equilibria defined by the assemblages albite + paragonite + quartz + fluid and paragonite + andalusite + quartz + fluid. Values of the equilibrium constants for the above reactions were used to estimate the difference in Gibbs free energy of formation between NaCl^o and HCl^o in the range 400–700°C and 1–2 kbar. Similar calculations using data from phase equilibrium studies reported in the literature were made to determine the difference in Gibbs free energy of formation between KCl^o and HCl^o. These data permit modelling of the chemical interaction between muscovite + kspar + paragonite + albite + quartz assemblages and chloride-bearing hydrothermal fluids.     

Sedimentary facies and depositional history of the Swan Islands,Honduras

Swan Island is a Honduran possession in the western Caribbean, located on the southeastern side of the Cayman Trench. Two sedimentary assemblages are found on the island: an older bedded sequence of mid-Tertiary age (Aquitanian or Burdigalian) and a younger sedimentary sequence of Late Pleistocene age. The older sequence is composed of a series of calcarenites, calcilutites, and siliciclastic mudstones; capping these are cliff-forming reefal carbonates of the younger sequence.The rocks of the older bedded sequence accumulated in deep water. Sedimentation consisted of a constant rain of pyroclastic debris interrupted by the episodic introduction of upslope carbonate material by turbidity currents. Uplift and deformation of this sequence was initiated sometime after the Early Miocene. By the Late Pleistocene, uplift had brought the rocks into water depths conducive to coral growth. Pleistocene sedimentation on the island was controlled by the interaction between tectonic uplift and eustatic sea-level changes. The primary controlling force on the tectonic history of the island is its proximity to the boundary between the North American and Caribbean plates.     

Silicic differentiates of abyssal oceanic magmas: Evidence for late-magmatic vapor transport of potassium

Massive, nearly holocrystalline dolerites from DSDP Hole 417D contain from 0.5 to 1.5% of granophyric patches composed mainly of Na-plagioclase and quartz. These patches are compositionally similar to other crystalline silicic rocks from oceanic spreading centers and differ from rarer abyssal silicic glasses. Crystalline varieties withSiO₂60wt.% generally haveNa/K>10, whereas silicic glasses have Na/K in the range 3–6. While crystal fractionation readily accounts for the Na₂O and K₂O contents of abyssal silicic glasses, both the 417D granophyres and other crystalline abyssal silicic rocks have much lower K₂O than that predicted by any reasonable crystal-liquid fractionation model. We propose that high-temperature vapor phase transport is responsible for removal of potassium during late-stage crystallization of these rocks. This allows for the formation of cogenetic silicic glassy and crystalline rocks with greatly different Na/K ratios. These observations and interpretations lead to a more confident assignment of high Na/K silicic rocks of oceanic and ophiolitic environments to a cogenetic origin with basaltic oceanic crust.     

The Cartesian method for solving partial differential equations in spherical geometry

Cartesian coordinates are used to solve the nonlinear shallow-water equations on the sphere. The two-dimensional equations, in spherical coordinates, are first embedded in a three-dimensional system in a manner that preserves solutions of the two-dimensional system. That is, solutions of the three-dimensional system, with appropriate initial conditions, also solve the two-dimensional system on the surface of the sphere. The higher dimensional system is then transformed to Cartesian coordinates. Computations are limited to the surface of the sphere by projecting the equations, gradients, and solution onto the surface. The projected gradients are approximated by a weighted sum of function values on a neighboring stencil. The weights are determined by collocation using the spherical harmonics in trivariate polynomial form. That is, the weights are computed from the requirement that the projected gradients are near exact for a small set of spherical harmonics. The method is applicable to any distribution of points and two test cases are implemented on an icosahedral geodesic grid. The method is both vectorizable and parallelizable.     

Time-Variations of D-Region Electron Densities, and Comparisons With Model Computations

An extensive series of incoherent scatter studies of the ionospheric D-region was carried out at the Arecibo radar facility during 1978 and 1979. They included several full-day sequences of electron density measurements over a range of altitudes, and also included a sequence during the serendipitous occurrence of a large solar flare. For the solar flare event simultaneous data on solar X-ray fluxes in several wavelength bands were available from the GOES-2 and ISEE-3 satellites. In the course of development of a large ionospheric computer model at Los Alamos we have used the solar flare data as a reality check. The solar X-ray flux data were used as inputs for computing ionization rates. The model computer includes 999 chemical reactions, and also includes diffusion and transport processes. In the course of the flare studies we used the data comparisons to adjust the values of three chemical rate coefficients that were poorly known. With those adjustments the model computations fitted the data quite well. Subsequent to the flare analysis we have been using the same model with some minor updates to compute the expected diurnal variations of the ambient D-region under conditions chosen to match those existing at the times of the incoherent scatter measurements. Comparisons of the computations and the data will be shown, and the relative importance of the several separate ionization processes will be discussed. We also compare model results with experimental data on concentrations of NO.