Taconic Orogeny in Pennsylvania: A 15 –20 m.y. Apennine-style Ordovician event viewed from its Martic hinterland

In Pennsylvania, the Taconic Orogeny lasted from 461 to 443 Ma as Cambro-Ordovician slope deposits were deformed into mountains edging the Laurentian craton at the same time that materials from an adjacent deep-water basin were being transported 50 –70 km across a carbonate platform into foreland basins. This paper focuses on shelf-edge hinterland features, mostly the Martic Zone as a folded, stack of imbricate thrust sheets of slope materials that corresponds to Vermont's Taconic Mountains and Southern Quebec's zone of Taconic allochthons. Work of the last century is summarized, corrected, and combined with a new 450 Ma radiometric date and fluid inclusion data from the Pequea Mine within the Martic Zone. These and abundant new graptolite and conodont dates in the foreland paint a revised Pennsylvania picture differing from the northern Taconic areas. Differences are: (1) transport of very large allochthonous masses of deep-water material, the Dauphin Formation, far across the carbonate platform, and (2) deformation migrating progressively across that platform during a 15 –20 m.y. period, incorporating it and its foreland cover into alpine-scale, recumbent folds and thrusts. The scenario has many analogies to Italy's modern Apennine Mountains minus the Latian volcanics.     

Life in the sublittoral zone of long-lived Lake Pannon: paleontological analysis of the Upper Miocene Szák Formation,Hungary

Life and depositional environments in the sublittoral zone of Lake Pannon, a large, brackish Paratethyan lake from the Late Miocene, were reconstructed from fossils and facies of the Szák Formation. This formation is exposed in several, roughly coeval (9.4–8.9 Ma) outcrops, located along strike of the paleo-shelf-break in northwestern Hungary. The silty argillaceous marl of the formation was deposited below storm wave base, at 20–30 to 80–90 m water depth. The abundance of benthic organisms indicates that the bottom water was usually well oxygenated. Interstitial dysoxia, however, may have occurred immediately below the sediment–water interface, as evidenced by occasional preservation of trace fossils such as Diplocraterion. The fauna comprised endemic mollusks, including brackish cockles of the subfamily Lymnocardiinae, dreissenid mussels (Congeria), and highly adapted, uniquely large-sized deep-water pulmonate snails (planorbids and lymnaeids). Ostracods were dominated by endemic species and, in some cases, endemic genera of candonids, leptocytherids, cypridids, and loxoconchids. Fish remnants include a sciaenid otolith and the oldest skeletal occurrence of Perca in Europe. The phytoplankton comprised exclusively endemic coccolithophorids, mostly endemic dinoflagellates (prevailingly Spiniferites), and cosmopolitan green algae. The Late Miocene fauna and flora of Lake Pannon were in many ways similar to the modern Caspian biota, and in particular cases can be regarded as its precursor.     

Late Glacial ice advances in southeast Tibet

The sensitivity of Tibetan glacial systems to North Atlantic climate forcing is a major issue in palaeoclimatology. In this study, we present surface exposure ages of erratic boulders from a valley system in the Hengduan Mountains, southeastern Tibet, showing evidence of an ice advance during Heinrich event 1. Cosmogenic nuclide analyses (¹⁰Be and ²¹Ne) revealed consistent exposure ages, indicating no major periods of burial or pre-exposure. Erosion-corrected (3 mm/ka) ¹⁰Be exposure ages range from 13.4 to 16.3 ka. This is in agreement with recalculated exposure ages from the same valley system by [Tschudi, S., Schäfer, J.M., Zhao, Z., Wu, X., Ivy-Ochs, S., Kubik, P.W., Schlüchter, C., 2003. Glacial advances in Tibet during the Younger Dryas? Evidence from cosmogenic ¹⁰Be, ²⁶Al, and ²¹Ne. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 22, 301–306.]. Thus this indicates that local glaciers advanced in the investigated area as a response to Heinrich event 1 cooling and that periglacial surface adjustments during the Younger Dryas overprinted the glacial morphology, leading to deceptively young exposure ages of certain erratic boulders.     

Generating fracture networks using iterated function systems

In order to model flow and transport in fractured rocks it is important to know the geometry of the fracture network. A stochastic approach is commonly used to generate a synthetic fracture network from the statistics measured at a natural fracture network. The approach presented herein is able to incorporate the structures found in a natural fracture network into the synthetic fracture network. These synthetic fracture networks are the images generated by Iterated Function Systems (IFS) as introduced by Barnsley (1988). The conditions these IFS have to fulfil to determine images resembling fracture networks and the effects of their parameters on the images are discussed. It is possible to define the parameters of the IFS in order to generate some properties of a fracture network. The image of an IFS consists of many single points and has to be suitably processed for further use.     

Chemical composition of rock-forming minerals in gold-related granitoid intrusions,southwestern New Brunswick,Canada: implications for crystallization conditions,volatile exsolution,and fluorine-chlorine activity

Chemical composition of rock-forming minerals in Appalachian Siluro-Devonian granitoid intrusions, southwestern New Brunswick, was systematically determined by electron microprobe. The mineral chemical data together with petrographic examination was used to test magmatic equilibration and to constrain crystallization conditions, volatile exsolution, and fluorine-chlorine activity of fluids associated with these intrusions. Mineralogical distinction between Late Silurian to Early Devonian granodioritic to monzogranitic series (GMS) and Late Devonian granitic series (GS) rocks is evident, although both are subsolvus I-type to evolved I-type granitoids. Oxidized to reduced GMS rocks consist of quartz, plagioclase (An>10), K-feldspar, biotite, apatite, titanite, zircon, monazite, ± hornblende, ± pyroxene, ± magnetite, ± ilmenite, and ± sulfide. GS rocks comprise quartz, K-feldspar, plagioclase (An<10), mica group minerals, zircon, monazite, apatite, sulfide, ± ilmente, ± magnetite, ± topaz, ± columbite, and ± xenotime. Inter-intrusion and intra-intrusion variations in mineral chemistry are interpreted to reflect petrogenetic processes (e.g., assimilation and fractional crystallization) during granitoid evolution. Although magmatic equilibration among rock-forming minerals are disturbed by subsolidus hydrothermal processes, GMS rocks appear to have higher magmatic temperatures, variable levels of emplacement, a range of (i.e., reduced intrusions 10^−16.7∼10^−13.4 and oxidized intrusions 10^−14.0∼10^−10.5 bars), and relatively low f _HF/f _HCl ratios (10^−3.0∼10^−1.0) in exsolved fluids, compared to GS rocks. Reduced GMS intrusions bear higher gold potential and thus may be prospective targets for intrusion-related gold systems. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available for this article at     

Refining the timing of eclogite metamorphism: a geochemical,petrological, Sm-Nd and U-Pb case study from the Pohorje Mountains,Slovenia (Eastern Alps)

High-pressure metamorphism in the Pohorje Mountains of Slovenia (Austroalpine unit, Eastern Alps) affected N-MORB type metabasic and metapelitic lithologies. Thermodynamic calculations and equilibrium phase diagrams of kyanite–phengite-bearing eclogites reveal PT conditions of >2.1 GPa at T<750°C, but within the stability field of quartz. Metapelitic eclogite country rocks contain the assemblage garnet + phengite + kyanite + quartz, for which calculated peak pressure conditions are in good agreement with results obtained from eclogite samples. The eclogites contain a single population of spherical zircon with a low Th/U ratio. Combined constraints on the age of metamorphism come from U/Pb zircon as well as garnet–whole rock and mineral–mineral Sm-Nd analyses from eclogites. A coherent cluster of single zircon analyses yields a ²⁰⁶Pb/²³⁸U age of 90.7±1.0 Ma that is in good agreement with results from Sm-Nd garnet–whole rock regression of 90.7±3.9 and 90.1±2.0 Ma (εNd: +8) for two eclogite samples. The agreement between U-Pb and Sm-Nd age data strongly suggests an age of approximately 90 Ma for the pressure peak of the eclogites in the Pohorje Mountains. The presence of garnet, omphacite and quartz inclusions in unfractured zircon indicates high-pressure rather than ultrahigh pressure conditions. The analysed metapelite sample yields a Sm-Nd garnet–whole rock scatterchron age of 97±15 Ma. These data probably support a single P-T loop for mafic and pelitic lithologies of the Pohorje area and a late Cretaceous high-pressure event that affected the entire easternmost Austroalpine basement including the Koralpe and Saualpe eclogite type locality in the course of the complex collision of the Apulian microplate and Europe.     

Value of Climate Forecasts for Adjusting Farming Strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sustaining and increasing crop production and productivity has to be a major policy thrust for developing countries. Using a simulation approach different production strategies were evaluated conditioned on climate information to derive optimal strategies to help farmers reduce risk and increase productivity. By examining the existence of options in this case planting dates the study provides an analyses of the expected value and risks associated with changing decisions based on the availability of climate forecasts. The 15-March planting date produced the highest mean yield for the two cultivars examined although 1-April, 15-April and 1-May plantings had one to zero probability of crop failures compared to 15-March with crop failures in 4 out of 20 years. Results indicate losses of between 25 and 35 kg/day due to delays in planting from 15-March planting to 1-June planting for the 120- and 150-day cultivar. El niño years were associated with positive yield deviations for both cultivars and most planting dates. Farmers are known to make tactical adjustments to their management in light of information perceived relevant to the prospects of forthcoming crop. Although in its present form most current forecast products do not provide information on onset of the rainfall, however the information they do provide could play a crucial role in helping farmers reduce the risks posed by climatic variability.     

Assessing the Vibrational Frequencies of the Holweide Hospital in the City of Cologne (Germany) by Means of Ambient Seismic Noise Analysis and FE modelling

Ambient seismic noise measurements were conducted inside the Holweide Hospital (Cologne) for checking whether its frequencies of vibration fall into the range where soil amplification is expected. If this is the case, damage might increase in case of an earthquake due to an amplified structural response of the building. Two different techniques were used: the ratio between the horizontal and vertical components of the spectra recorded at stations located inside the building and the ratio between the corresponding components of the spectra recorded simultaneously inside the building and at a reference station placed outside. While the former method might be preferred because of less equipment involved, the latter has the advantage of producing more stable results and deleting automatically the influence of the sedimentary cover, which might obscure some eigenfrequencies of vibration of the building. An independently performed finite-element analysis of the hospital showed a good correlation between measured and calculated eigenmodes.