First information about the geology of central antarctica based on study of mineral inclusions in ice cores of the Vostok station borehole

Study of mineral inclusions in the basal part of the central Antarctic ice sheet from the borehole at the Vostok station was carried out. Mineral inclusions were trapped during freezing of the subglacial Lake Vostok water on the base of the glacier, when it crossed a shallow coastal area. It is established that the mineral inclusions are aggregates consisting mainly of clay minerals and quartz up to 150 microns. Crystals of aragonite and sulfides detected in the inclusions may indicate the presence of modern hydrothermal activity beneath the ice. Small (up to 4.5 mm) fragments of siltstone and aleuropelite in some aggregates suggest that lithified clastic sediments are exposed on the western coast of Lake Vostok, where removal of debris material occurred at the expense of exaration. Detrital zircon and monazite, found in siltstones and aleuropelite, suggest the chronology of geological complexes of the provenance area, which is, as is assumed, located in the Gamburtsev mountains in the central Antarctic. The age of the provenance area is 0.8–1.2 to 1.6–2.0 billion years.     

3D Neural Network Inversion of Field Geoelectric Data with Calculating Posterior Estimates

Izvestiya, Physics of the Solid Earth - Abstract—The approximation neural network (ANN) method for solving the inverse geoelectric problem in the piecewise constant classes of media with the...     

First Evidence of Middle Triassic Basic Magmatism in the Southwestern Part of the Dzhugdzhur–Stanovoi Superterrane (Ilikan Terrane)

U–Pb ID–TIMS zircon analyses of the Dzhigda gabbro–gabbrodiorite Massif (Ilikan block in the southwestern part of the Dzhugdzhur–Stanovoi superterrane) have been carried out. The results demonstrate that the formation of the massif at 244 ± 5 Ma corresponds to one of the stages of formation of the Selenga–Vitim volcano–plutonic belt. The latter stretches along the southeastern margin of the North Asian Craton along its border with the Mongol–Okhotsk fold belt. This indicates that the Selenga–Vitim volcano–plutonic belt along with granitoids and volcanics comprises Permian–Triassic massifs and that this belt is superimposed onto structures of not only the Selenga–Stanovoi terrane but also the Dzhugdzhur–Stanovoi terrane.     

Mechanisms of the vertical secular heating of a stellar disk

We investigate the nonlinear growth stages of the bending instability in stellar disks with exponential radial density profiles. We found that the unstable modes are global (the wavelengths are larger than the disk scale lengths) and that the instability saturation level is much higher than that following from a linear criterion. The instability saturation time scales are of the order of one billion years or more. For this reason, the bending instability can play an important role in the secular heating of a stellar disk in the z direction. In an extensive series of numerical N-body simulations with a high spatial resolution, we were able to scan in detail the space of key parameters (the initial disk thickness z₀, the Toomre parameter Q, and the ratio of dark halo mass to disk mass M_h/M_d). We revealed three distinct mechanisms of disk heating in the z direction: bending instability of the entire disk, bending instability of the bar, and heating on vertical inhomogeneities in the distribution of stellar matter.     

Geology and geochronology of neoarchean anorogenic magmatism of the Keivy structure, Kola Peninsula

Anorogenic magmatic complexes were formed during protoplatformal evolution of the Keivy structure. This evolution ended with development of aluminous schists, which were derived by deep disintegration and redeposition of the rocks from the lower parts of the sequence and surrounding of the structure. The anorogenic rocks of the region are represented by the following magmatic complexes: gabbro-labradorite-latite-monzonite-granites; ophitic gabbro and gabbrodiabases; quartz syenite-alkaline granites; alkaline and nepheline syenites. The magmatic activity of this period, starting from the emplacement of gabbrolabradorite massifs and ending with alkaline and nepheline syenite bodies, was caused by ascent of mantle asthenolith, which destructed the Earth’s crust basement in this area. The anorogenic magmatism of the Keivy structure lasted for no more than few or few tens of million years. The granitoid subcomplex of the gabbro-labradorite-latite-monzonite-granite complex is dated at 2674 ± 6 Ma, which is comparable with an age of alkaline granites of the Ponoy and Beliye Tundry massifs (2673 ± 6 Ma). The considered complexes are separated in time by intrusion of amphibole-biotite plagiomicrocline granites with an age of 2667 ± 8 Ma. Gabbrolabradorites of the Shchuch’e Ozero and Tsaga massifs have close ages (2663 ± 7 and 2668 ± 10 Ma, respectively, Bayanova, 2004), but were formed earlier than granitoids (Bayanova, 2004). Formation of alkaline syenites of the Sakharijok I Massif, which finalized the Neoarchean anorogenic magmatism of the region, falls in the same interval. During Paleoproterozoic transformations, the rocks of the Keivy structure were sheared and uranium was introduced in the contact zones of the alkaline granite massifs, which caused formation of palingenetic melts and subsequent formation of pegmatites in the outer contact zones of the granite bodies.     

Secular variation of geomagnetic field intensity during polarity transitions

Summary. The palaeointensity of the geomagnetic field during some ancient polarity transitions as well as and during the Jaramillo event was determined by the method of alternating-field remagnetization. The periods of the secular variation during these transitions were also determined.