Prehistoric soil and water detention structures (gabarbands) at Phang,Sindh Kohistan,Pakistan: An adaptation to environmental change?

Five gabarbands (dams), components of integrated soil and water conservation systems, were investigated in the arid region of Sindh Kohistan. The dams are associated with two prehistoric Kot Dijian settlements, Phang and Kohtrash (3200–2800 B. C.). The dams were constructed with relatively permeable materials. Three of the dams, South, East, and North, close off water gaps and a strike valley, respectively, to form a detention basin. The West Dam, located on Phang Nai, upstream of the detention basin removed the coarser sediment fraction from the flows. Spring Dam, located in a water gap to the north of the detention basin, acted as a low-head weir to distribute flow from a perennial spring onto the floodplain of Baran Nai, where double-cropping was probably practiced. Faulting eliminated the spring, which had probably supported the Kohtrash site, and led to construction of the detection basin for the purposes of subsurface storage of detained flows. Association of both modern and prehistoric sites with springs suggests that there has not been appreciable climate change in Sindh Kohistan in the last 5000 years. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Strain analysis of a seismically imaged mass‐transport complex,offshore Uruguay

Strain style, magnitude and distribution within mass‐transport complexes (MTCs) are important for understanding the process evolution of submarine mass flows and for estimating their runout distances. Structural restoration and quantification of strain in gravitationally driven passive margins have been shown to approximately balance between updip extensional and downdip contractional domains; such an exercise has not yet been attempted for MTCs. We here interpret and structurally restore a shallowly buried (c. 1,500 mbsf) and well‐imaged MTC, offshore Uruguay using a high‐resolution (12.5 m vertical and 15 × 12.5 m horizontal resolution) three‐dimensional seismic‐reflection survey. This allows us to characterise and quantify vertical and lateral strain distribution within the deposit. Detailed seismic mapping and attribute analysis shows that the MTC is characterised by a complicated array of kinematic indicators, which vary spatially in style and concentration. Seismic‐attribute extractions reveal several previously undocumented fabrics preserved in the MTC, including internal shearing in the form of sub‐orthogonal shear zones, and fold‐thrust systems within the basal shear zone beneath rafted‐blocks. These features suggest multiple transport directions and phases of flow during emplacement. The MTC is characterised by a broadly tripartite strain distribution, with extensional (e.g. normal faults), translational and contractional (e.g. folds and thrusts) domains, along with a radial frontally emergent zone. We also show how strain is preferentially concentrated around intra‐MTC rafted‐blocks due to their kinematic interactions with the underlying basal shear zone. Overall, and even when volume loss within the frontally emergent zone is included, a strain difference between extension (1.6–1.9 km) and contraction (6.7–7.3 km) is calculated. We attribute this to a combination of distributed, sub‐seismic, ‘cryptic’ strain, likely related to de‐watering, grain‐scale deformation and related changes in bulk sediment volume. This work has implications for assessing MTCs strain distribution and provides a practical approach for evaluating structural interpretations within such deposits.     

Petrogenesis of lunar impact melt rock meteorite Oued Awlitis 001

Oued Awlitis 001 is a highly feldspathic, moderately equilibrated, clast‐rich, poikilitic impact melt rock lunar meteorite that was recovered in 2014. Its poikilitic texture formed due to moderately slow cooling, which judging from textures of rocks in melt sheets of terrestrial impact structures, is observed in impact melt volumes at least 100 m thick. Such coherent impact melt volumes occur in lunar craters larger than ~50 km in diameter. The composition of Oued Awlitis 001 points toward a crustal origin distant from incompatible‐element‐rich regions. Comparison of the bulk composition of Oued Awlitis 001 with Lunar Prospector 5° γ‐ray spectrometer data indicates a limited region of matches on the lunar farside. After its initial formation in an impact crater larger than ~50 km in diameter, Oued Awlitis 001 was excavated from a depth greater than ~50 m. The cosmogenic nuclide inventory of Oued Awlitis 001 records ejection from the Moon 0.3 Ma ago from a depth of at least 4 m and little mass loss due to ablation during its passage through Earth's atmosphere. The terrestrial residence time must have been very short, probably less than a few hundred years; its exact determination was precluded by a high concentration of solar cosmic ray‐produced ¹⁴C. If the impact that excavated Oued Awlitis 001 also launched it, this event likely produced an impact crater >10 km in diameter. Using petrologic constraints and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera and Diviner data, we test Giordano Bruno and Pierazzo as possible launch craters for Oued Awlitis 001.     

Documentation of shock features in impactites from the Dhala impact structure,India

The fundamental approach for the confirmation of any terrestrial meteorite impact structure is the identification of diagnostic shock metamorphic features, together with the physical and chemical characterization of impactites and target lithologies. However, for many of the approximately 200 confirmed impact structures known on Earth to date, multiple scale‐independent tell‐tale impact signatures have not been recorded. Especially some of the pre‐Paleozoic impact structures reported so far have yielded limited shock diagnostic evidence. The rocks of the Dhala structure in India, a deeply eroded Paleoproterozoic impact structure, exhibit a range of diagnostic shock features, and there is even evidence for traces of the impactor. This study provides a detailed look at shocked samples from the Dhala structure, and the shock metamorphic evidence recorded within them. It also includes a first report of shatter cones that form in the shock pressure range from ~2 to 30 GPa, data on feather features (FFs), crystallographic indexing of planar deformation features, first‐ever electron backscatter diffraction data for ballen quartz, and further analysis of shocked zircon. The discovery of FFs in quartz from a sample of the MCB‐10 drill core (497.50 m depth) provides a comparatively lower estimate of shock pressure (~7–10 GPa), whereas melting of a basement granitoid infers at least 50–60 GPa shock pressure. Thus, the Dhala impactites register a strongly heterogeneous shock pressure distribution between <2 and >60 GPa. The present comprehensive review of impact effects should lay to rest the nonimpact genesis of the Dhala structure proposed by some earlier workers from India.     

Creating an isotopically similar Earth–Moon system with correct angular momentum from a giant impact

The giant impact hypothesis is the dominant theory explaining the formation of our Moon. However, the inability to produce an isotopically similar Earth–Moon system with correct angular momentum has cast a shadow on its validity. Computer-generated impacts have been successful in producing virtual systems that possess many of the observed physical properties. However, addressing the isotopic similarities between the Earth and Moon coupled with correct angular momentum has proven to be challenging. Equilibration and evection resonance have been proposed as means of reconciling the models. In the summer of 2013, the Royal Society called a meeting solely to discuss the formation of the Moon. In this meeting, evection resonance and equilibration were both questioned as viable means of removing the deficiencies from giant impact models. The main concerns were that models were multi-staged and too complex. We present here initial impact conditions that produce an isotopically similar Earth–Moon system with correct angular momentum. This is done in a single-staged simulation. The initial parameters are straightforward and the results evolve solely from the impact. This was accomplished by colliding two roughly half-Earth-sized impactors, rotating in approximately the same plane in a high-energy, off-centered impact, where both impactors spin into the collision.     

Modeling the natural degradation of earthworks

Stratigraphic, topographic, and ground‐penetrating radar data obtained from a ca. 1800‐year‐old embankment and adjacent ditch at the Hopewell Mound Group (Chillicothe, Ohio) are used to validate the archaeological application of a simple finite‐differences diffusion model employed frequently to assess geomorphic change in natural landscapes. Although diffusion models have been used to describe the topographic degradation of landforms in a variety of geomorphic terrains, the approach has not been applied to ancient earthworks in an archaeological context. The results of this study indicate that a variety of initial earthwork forms can result in the sinusoidal profile apparent on the current landscape. Using the model results to interpret the field data, we suggest that the initial embankment form was steeper and the adjacent ditch was deeper. As a result of natural degradation processes, the earthwork widened and flattened over time. These results have broad implications for any study aimed at: (1) assessing the function of original earthwork forms, (2) determining the formation processes of complicated stratigraphies or artifact assemblages, (3) estimating the time and labor investment required for construction, or (4) identifying the socio‐political structures necessary to build earthworks. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.