Observing artificially induced strain: implications for subglacial deformation

By analysing a series of four successive thin‐sections from a ceramic clay that was subjected to uniaxial compression, we were able to monitor the development of microstructures in a fine‐grained sediment. The artificially induced microstructures, such as unidirectional clay reorientations and linear and circular grain arrangements, are identical to features that have been observed in thin‐sections of subglacially deformed tills, and therefore may be used as representative analogues. We argue that the structures, reflecting slip, planar shear displacements as well as rotational movements, can be explained by assuming a Coulomb‐plastic response to imposed shear. We conclude that sediments subjected to subglacial deformation behave as Coulomb materials, at least during the final stages of the deformation. The present study bridges the gap between field studies, experimental studies and theoretical modelling. The microscopic observations assist in visualising inferred subglacial processes and facilitate up‐ and downscaling between diverse methodological approaches. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Web-Based interrogation of large-scale geophysical data sets from handheld devices

This paper describes the issues related to using handheld devices to interrogate wirelessly large-scale geophysical data over the Web using a client–server configuration. A modification of our current Web-based data interrogation program addresses specifically the limitations of current handheld devices with wireless access, such as processor speed, screen size and resolution, memory, and network speeds. The system uses a combination of Java, Python, and C in order to run remotely from the handheld device, while incorporating the power and memory capacity of a large workstation server.     

Tsunami Hazard and Risk in Canada

Tsunamis have occurred in Canada due to earthquakes, landslides, and a large chemical explosion. The Pacific coast is at greatest risk from tsunamis because of the high incidence of earthquakes and landslides in that region. The most destructive historical tsunamis, however, have been in Atlantic Canada – one in 1917 in Halifax Harbour, which was triggered by a catastrophic explosion on a munitions ship, and another in 1929 in Newfoundland, caused by an earthquake-triggered landslide at the edge of the Grand Banks. The tsunami risk along Canada's Arctic coast and along the shores of the Great Lakes is low in comparison to that of the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. Public awareness of tsunami hazard and risk in Canada is low because destructive tsunamis are rare events.     

Glacial Lake Outburst Floods in the Nepal Himalaya: A Manageable Hazard?

Within the past fifteen years, glacial lake outburst floods have become an activetopic of discussion within the development community focused on Nepal. Suchfloods endanger thousands of people, hundreds of villages, and basic infrastructuresuch as trails and bridges. The flood risk is also a major impediment to hydroelectricdevelopment in several river basins. Unlike most other mountain hazards in Nepal,reducing the possibility of outburst floods is technically feasible. The first attemptwithin Nepal to reduce the hazard of one lake by artificially lowering its water levelwas partially completed in June 2000. Completing this task and beginning work onother hazardous lakes will require difficult decisions about risk by downstream residentsand substantial investment from the international aid community.     

Petrogenesis of the Greenhills Complex,Southland, New Zealand: magmatic differentiation and cumulate formation at the roots of a Permian island-arc volcano

A Permian (~265 Ma) intrusive complex which formed as a magmatic feeder reservoir to an immature island-arc volcano is fortuitously exposed in southern New Zealand. Known as the Greenhills Complex, this intrusion was emplaced at shallow crustal levels and consists of two layered bodies which were later intruded by a variety of dykes. Cumulates, which include dunite, olivine clinopyroxenite, olivine gabbro, and hornblende gabbro-norite, are related products of parent-magma fractionation. Both primary (magmatic) and secondary platinum-group minerals occur within dunite at one locality. Using the composition of cumulus minerals, mafic dykes and melt inclusions, we have determined that the parent magmas of the complex were hydrous, low-K island-arc tholeiites of ankaramitic affinities. Progressive magmatic differentiation of this parent magma generated fractionated melt of high-alumina basalt composition which is now preserved only as dykes which cut the Complex. Field evidence and cumulus mineral profiles reveal that the magma chambers experienced turbulent magmatic conditions during cumulate-rock formation. Recharge of the chambers by primitive magma is likely to have coincided with eruption of residual melt at the surface. Similar processes are inferred to account for volcanic-rock compositions in other parts of this arc terrane and in modern island-arc systems.     

Origin and tectonic significance of a Mesozoic multi-layer over-thrust system within the Yangtze Block (South China)

In the Yangtze Block (South China), a well-developed Mesozoic thrust system extends through the Xuefeng and Wuling mountains in the southeast to the Sichuan basin in the northwest. The system comprises both thin- and thick-skinned thrust units separated by a boundary detachment fault, the Dayin fault. To the northwest, the thin-skinned belt is characterized by either chevron anticlines and box synclines to the northwest or chevron synclines to the southeast. The former structural style displays narrow exposures for the cores of anticlines and wider exposures for the cores of synclines. Thrust detachments occur along Silurian (Fs) and Lower Cambrian (Fc) strata and are dominantly associated with the anticlines. To the southeast, this style of deformation passes gradually into one characterized by chevron synclines with associated principal detachment faults along Silurian (Fs), Cambrian (Fc) and Lower Sinian (Fz) strata. There are, however, numerous secondary back thrusts. Therefore, the thin-skinned belt is like the Valley and Ridge Province of the North American Applachian Mountains. The thick-skinned belt structurally overlies the thin-skinned belt and is characterized by a number of klippen including the Xuefeng and Wuling nappes. It is thus comparable to the Blue Ridge Province of Appalachia.The structural pattern of this thrust system in South China can be explained by a model involving detachment faulting along various stratigraphic layers at different stages of its evolution. The system was developed through a northwest stepwise progression of deformation with the earliest delamination along Lower Sinian strata (Fz). Analyses of balanced geological cross-sections yield about 18.1–21% (total 88 km) shortening for the thin-skinned unit and at least this amount of shortening for the thick-skinned unit. The compressional deformation from southeast to northwest during Late Jurassic to Cretaceous time occurred after the westward progressive collision of the Yangtze Block with the North China Block and suggests that the orogenic event was intracontinental in nature.     

Papua New Guinea Highlands: palaeomagnetic constraints on terrane tectonics

Oblique convergence since the Early Cenozoic between the northward-moving Australian plate, westward-moving Pacific plate and almost stationary Eurasian plate has created a world-ranking tectonic zone in the eastern Indonesia–New Guinea–Southwest Pacific region (Tonga–Sulawesi megashear) that is notorious for its complex mix of tectonic styles and terrane juxtapositions. Unlike an ancient analog—the Mesozoic–Cenozoic Cordillera of North America—palaeomagnetic constraints on terrane motions in the zone are few. To improve the framework of quantitative control on such motions and therefore our understanding of the development of the zone, results of a palaeomagnetic study in the Highlands region of Papua New Guinea (PNG), in the southern part of the New Guinea Orogen, are reported. The study yields new insights into terrane tectonics along the Australian craton's active northern margin and confirms the complexity of block rotations to be expected at the local scale in tectonically intricate zones. The study is based on more than 500 samples (21 localities) collected from an interior and an exterior zone of New Guinea's central cordillera. The two zones are separated by the Tahin and Stolle–Lagaip–Kaugel Fault zones and collectively represent the para-autochthonous northern margin of the Australian craton. Samples from the interior zone, which in the study area comprises a cratonic spur of uncertain—probably displaced—origin, come from Triassic to Miocene sediments and subordinate volcanics of the Kubor Anticline, Jimi Terrane, and Yaveufa Syncline (16 localities) in the central and eastern Highlands. Samples from the exterior zone, which represent a basement-involved, Pliocene foreland fold-and-thrust belt, come from Middle Eocene to Middle Miocene carbonates and clastics (five localities) in the southern Highlands of the Papuan Fold Belt. Results permit us to constrain the tectonic evolution of the two zones palaeomagnetically. Using mainly thermal demagnetization techniques, three main magnetic components have been identified in the collection: (1) a recent field overprint of both normal and reverse polarity; (2) a pervasive overprint of mainly normal polarity that originated during extensive Middle to Late Miocene intrusive activity in the central cordillera; and (3) a primary component which has been identified in only 7 of the 21 localities (5 of 11 stratigraphic units represented in the collection). All components show patterns of rotation that are consistent within the zones, but differ between them. In the interior zone (central and eastern Highlands), large-scale counterclockwise rotations of between 30°+ and 100°+ have been established throughout the Kubor Anticline and Jimi Terrane, with some clockwise rotation present in the southern part of the Yaveufa Syncline. In contrast, in the Mendi area of the exterior zone (southern Highlands), clockwise rotations of between 30°+ and 50°+ can be recognized. These contrasting rotation patterns across the Tahin and Stolle–Lagaip–Kaugel Fault zones indicate decoupling of the two tectonic zones, probably along basement-involved faults. The clockwise rotations in the southern Highlands of the Papuan Fold Belt are to be expected from its structural grain, and are probably governed by regional basement faults and transverse lineaments. In contrast, the pattern of counterclockwise rotations in the Kubor Anticline–Jimi Terrane cratonic spur of the central and eastern Highlands was unexpected. The pattern is interpreted to result from non-rigid rotation of continental terranes as they were transported westward across the northeastern margin of the Australian craton. This margin became reorganised after the Middle Miocene, when the steadily northward-advancing Australian craton impinged into the westward-moving Pacific plate/buffer-plate system. Transpressional reorganisation under the influence of the sinistral Tonga–Sulawesi megashear became enhanced with Mio-Pliocene docking, and subsequent southward overthrusting, of the Finisterre Terrane onto the northeastern margin of the Australian craton.     

From geometry to dynamics of microstructure: using boundary lengths to quantify boundary misorientations and anisotropy

The microstructure of a quartzite experimentally deformed and partially recrystallised at 900 °C, 1.2 GPa confining pressure and strain rate 10⁻⁶/s was investigated using orientation contrast and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). Boundaries between misoriented domains (grains or subgrains) were determined by image analysis of orientation contrast images. In each domain, EBSD measurements gave the complete quartz lattice orientation and enabled calculation of misorientation angles across every domain boundary. Results are analysed in terms of the boundary density, which for any range of misorientations is the boundary length for that range divided by image area. This allows a more direct comparison of misorientation statistics between different parts of a sample than does a treatment in terms of boundary number.The strain in the quartzite sample is heterogeneous. A 100×150 μm low-strain partially recrystallised subarea C was compared with a high-strain completely recrystallised subarea E. The density of high-angle (>10°) boundaries in E is roughly double that in C, reflecting the greater degree of recrystallisation. Low-angle boundaries in C and E are produced by subgrain rotation. In the low-angle range 0–10° boundary densities in both C and E show an exponential decrease with increasing misorientation. The densities scale with exp(−θ/λ) where λ is approximately 2° in C and 1° in E; in other words, E has a comparative dearth of boundaries in the 8–10° range. We explain this dearth in terms of mobile high-angle boundaries sweeping through and consuming low-angle boundaries as the latter increase misorientation through time. In E, the density of high-angle boundaries is larger than in C, so this sweeping would have been more efficient and could explain the relative paucity of 8–10° boundaries.The boundary density can be generalised to a directional property that gives the degree of anisotropy of the boundary network and its preferred orientation. Despite the imposed strain, the analysed samples show that boundaries are not, on average, strongly aligned. This is a function of the strong sinuosity of high-angle boundaries, caused by grain boundary migration. Low-angle boundaries might be expected, on average, to be aligned in relation to imposed strain but this is not found.Boundary densities and their generalisation in terms of directional properties provide objective measures of microstructure. In this study the patterns they show are interpreted in terms of combined subgrain rotation and migration recrystallisation, but it may be that other microstructural processes give distinctive patterns when analysed in this fashion.     

A mathematical model of concentrate solids content for the wet drum magnetic separator

Low concentrate density from wet drum magnetic separators in dense medium circuits can cause operating difficulties due to inability to obtain the required circulating medium density and, indirectly, high medium solids losses. The literature is almost silent on the processes controlling concentrate density. However, the common name for the region through which concentrate is discharged—the squeeze pan gap—implies that some extrusion process is thought to be at work. There is no model of magnetics recovery in a wet drum magnetic separator, which includes as inputs all significant machine and operating variables.A series of trials, in both factorial experiments and in single variable experiments, was done using a purpose built rig which featured a small industrial scale (700 mm lip length, 900 mm diameter) wet drum magnetic separator. A substantial data set of 191 trials was generated in this work. The results of the factorial experiments were used to identify the variables having a significant effect on magnetics recovery.It is proposed, based both on the experimental observations of the present work and on observations reported in the literature, that the process controlling magnetic separator concentrate density is one of drainage. Such a process should be able to be defined by an initial moisture, a drainage rate and a drainage time, the latter being defined by the volumetric flowrate and the volume within the drainage zone. The magnetics can be characterised by an experimentally derived ultimate drainage moisture. A model based on these concepts and containing adjustable parameters was developed. This model was then fitted to a randomly chosen 80% of the data, and validated by application to the remaining 20%. The model is shown to be a good fit to data over concentrate solids content values from 40% solids to 80% solids and for both magnetite and ferrosilicon feeds.