Monitoring Cenozoic climate evolution of northeastern Tibet: stable isotope constraints from the western Qaidam Basin,China

Carbon and oxygen stable isotopic composition of Cenozoic lacustrine carbonates from the intramontane Qaidam Basin yields cycles of variable length and shows several distinct events driven by tectonics and climate changes. From Eocene to Oligocene, the over-all trend in the δ¹³C composition of lacustrine carbonates shows a shift toward higher values, possibly related to higher proportions of dissolved inorganic carbon transported to the lake or lower input of soil derived CO₂. At the same time, the δ¹⁸O composition of lacustrine carbonates is decreasing in accordance with the global cooling trend and northwards drifting of the whole region. During the Miocene, distinct isotopic events can be recognized, although their interpretation and linkage to a certain tectonic event remains difficult. These events may be related to uplift in the Himalayas, to the strongest phase of uplift in the Altyn Mountains, to pronounced subsidence of the Qaidam Basin or to the expansion of C4 plants on land. Generally cold, highly evaporative conditions can be deduced from enrichment of δ¹⁸O isotopic compositions during Pliocene and Quaternary times.     

Eclogite varieties and petrotectonic evolution of the northern Guatemala Suture Complex

ABSTRACT

Field and petrologic characteristics of two new eclogite localities within the Guatemala Suture Complex (GSC) north of the Motagua Fault are presented. The Tuncaj Hill locality exposes a coherent body of retrogressed eclogite hundreds of metres long that is associated with serpentinite of the North Motagua Unit. The Tanilar River locality exposes numerous bands and lenses of eclogite hosted in sialic gneisses of the Chuacús Complex. The Tuncaj eclogite has a two-stage prograde evolution containing the peak assemblage Grt + Omp + Ttn + Czo + Zo ± Am, formed at temperatures <720°C. In contrast, eclogites of the Tanilar unit are characterized by the paragenesis Omp + Grt + Rt ± Phg ± Qtz ± Ep giving higher peak conditions of T = 720–830°C and P = 2.1–2.7 GPa, near the stability field of coesite. Previously obtained data and our thermobaric calculations suggest distinct petrotectonic evolutions for the various types of eclogites within the suture. The lawsonite eclogites south of the Motagua Fault were probably produced in a mature Farallon subduction zone during the Early Cretaceous. The northern high-pressure (HP) blocks in serpentinite mélange and coherent amphibolite bodies with eclogite relics were generated by the Early Cretaceous subduction of the proto-Caribbean lithosphere under the Great Caribbean Arc. A continental block, the North American passive margin, reached the arc’s trench in the Campanian and was subducted to ca. 80 km depth, producing the eclogites of the Chuacús Complex. As the slab was delaminated and partially exhumed, the continental Chuacús became tectonically juxtaposed with HP blocks of the proto-Caribbean that had been accreted to the Caribbean plate forming the North Motagua Unit. The juxtaposed group migrated to mid-crustal level and was contemporaneously retrogressed under epidote-amphibolite facies conditions.     

Forensic hydrology: what function tells about structure in complex settings

Facing the challenges of the European Water Framework Directive and competing demands requires a sound knowledge of the hydrological system. This is a major challenge in regions like Northeast Germany. The landscape has been massively reshaped during repeated advances and retreats of glaciation during the Pleistocene. This resulted in a complex setting of unconsolidated sediments with high textural heterogeneity and with layered aquifer systems, partly confined, but usually of unknown number and extent of single aquifers. The Institute of Landscape Hydrology aims both at a better understanding of hydrological processes and at providing a basis for sustainable water resources management in this region. That would require sound information about the respective regions of interest that are rarely available at sufficient degree of detail. Thus, there is urgent need for alternative approaches. For example, time series of groundwater head, lake water level and stream runoff do not only depend on (unknown) geological structures, but in turn can reveal information about major geological features. To that end, different approaches have been developed and successfully applied at different scales, based both on advanced time series analysis and dimension reduction approaches and on well-known and rather simple methods. This approach has been coined “forensic hydrology”: Like in a crime story, numerous pieces of evidence are combined in a systematic way to end up with a consistent conceptual model about the prevailing cause–effect relationships. An example is given for the Quillow catchment in Northeast Germany in a rather complex geological setting.     

New upper limits for atmospheric constituents on Io

A spectrum of the satellite of Jupiter, Io, from 0.86 to 2.7 μm at a resolution of 3.36 cm^?1 and a signal to rms noise ratio of 120 is presented. No absorptions due to any atmospheric constituents on Io could be found on the spectrum. Upper limits of 0.12 cm-atm for NH₃, 0.12cm-atm for CH₄, 0.4cm-atm for N₂O, and 24cm-atm for H₂S were determined. Laboratory spectra of ammonia frosts as a function of temperature were compared with the spectrum of Io and showed as a frost not to be present at the surface of Io. A search for possible resonance lines of carbon, silicon, and sulfur as well as the 1.08μm line of helium proved negative and upper emission limits of 60, 18, 27, and 60 kilorayleighs, respectively, were established for these lines.     

A High-Resolution Sea-Surface Temperature Record from the Tropical South China Sea (16,500–3000 yr B.P.)

The timing and magnitude of sea-surface temperature (SST) changes in the tropical southern South China Sea (SCS) during the last 16,500 years have been reconstructed on a high-resolution, ¹⁴C-dated sediment core using three different foraminiferal transfer functions (SIMMAX28, RAM, FP-12E) and geochemical (U^k′₃₇) SST estimates. In agreement with CLIMAP reconstructions, both the FP-12E and the U^k′₃₇ SST estimates show an average late glacial–interglacial SST difference of 2.0°C, whereas the RAM and SIMMAX28 foraminiferal transfer functions show only a minor (0.6°C) or no consistent late glacial–interglacial SST change, respectively. Both the U^k′₃₇ and the FP-12E SST estimates, as well as the planktonic foraminiferal δ¹⁸O values, indicate an abrupt warming (ca. 1°C in <200 yr) at the end of the last glaciation, synchronous (within dating uncertainties) with the Bølling transition as recorded in the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) ice core, whereas the RAM-derived deglacial SST increase appears to lag during this event by ca. 500 yr. The similarity in abruptness and timing of the warming associated with the Bølling transition in Greenland and the southern SCS suggest a true synchrony of the Northern Hemisphere warming at the end of the last glaciation. In contrast to the foraminiferal transfer function estimates that do not indicate any consistent cooling associated with the Younger Dryas (YD) climate event in the tropical SCS, the U^k′₃₇ SST estimates show a cooling of ca. 0.2–0.6°C compared to the Bølling–Allerød period. These U^k′₃₇ SST estimates from the southern SCS argue in favor of a Northern Hemisphere-wide, synchronous cooling during the YD period.     

Geochemistry and petrography of impact breccias and target rocks from the 145 Ma Morokweng impact structure, South Africa

Morokweng is a large, 145 Ma impact structure in the Northwest Province of South Africa. The impact origin of this structure and its melt rock has been confirmed by ample evidence of shock metamorphism in clasts within the melt rock and samples from granitoid basement below the melt body. The age of this structure is indistinguishable from the biostratigraphic age of the Jurassic-Cretaceous (J-K) boundary. The size of Morokweng, for which diameters ranging from 70 to 165 kilometers have been quoted before, and which has important implications regarding its relation to the J-K boundary, remains an open question.Here we present new results of a detailed petrographic and chemical investigation of impact melt rock and country rock samples. The granophyric melt rock is mostly unaltered and contains a large number of gabbroic and felsic clasts. The occurrence of baddeleyite, formed from high-temperature dissociation of primary zircon, indicates a high-temperature origin. The impact melt rock body, which in the cores investigated here has a thickness of at least 120 m, shows no statistically significant variation or trend in chemical composition with depth or geographic location. Chemical data for impact melt rock, breccia dike/vein breccia samples, granite, quartzite, and basic to mafic clasts were used in harmonic least squares mixing calculations to determine the source rock types and their proportions involved in the formation of the impact melt rock. Granite is the dominant target rock component (50 to 63% by weight; depending on target composition input to the mixing models), with significant (35 to 50%) mafic contributions, and a (possible) minor contribution of quartzite. New platinum group element (Ru, Rh, Pd, Os, Ir, and Pt), Re, and Au data, as well as data for other siderophile elements (Cr, Co, Ni, and Ir), confirm the presence of up to ∼ 5% of a chondritic component in the melt rock. The indigenous contribution of the PGEs from the target rocks is negligible. Normalized PGE abundance patterns and interelement ratios of Morokweng impact melt rock indicate that the projectile was likely of ordinary chondritic (possibly L chondrite) composition, but the choice of the meteoritic compositional data influences this interpretation.     

Subglacial topography and internal structure of central and western Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, determined from airborne radio echo sounding

During five austral summers, from 1994/1995 until 1998/1999, the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) carried out a large airborne radio echo sounding (RES) survey in Dronning Maud Land (DML), Antarctica. These ice thickness measurements are part of the AWI contribution to the pre-site survey for a deep ice core drill site in DML within the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA). The survey encompasses more than 90,000 km of RES profiles over DML and the adjacent coastal area, covering more than 1 million km². The lower boundary of the ice sheet could be determined area-wide. Internal horizons occurring in the upper two-thirds of the ice column can also be traced for several hundred kilometers. This work presents the latest maps of the subglacial topography of the investigated area as well as of an internal horizon.     

Reduction of nutrient loading, planktivore removal and piscivore stocking as tools in water quality management: The feldberger haussee biomanipulation project

The Feldberger Haussee, a highly eutrophic stratified hard-water lake located in the eastern part of Germany's Baltic lake district, was selected for a restoration programme combining external nutrient loading reduction and long-term biomanipulation. In 1980 the external phosphorus loading (1.8 g TP m⁻² a⁻¹) decreased by 90%, but water quality did not improve significantly within the following 6 years. In 1985 biomanipulation was initiated, with manual removal of cyprinid fish coupled with piscivore introductions as the principal measures. The expected changes in the pelagic community and improvements of water quality occurred after a delay of several years. Despite intensive manual removal of cyprinids and stocking of piscivores, standing stocks of cyprinid fish remained relatively high (130-260 kg ww ha⁻¹) after some years of decline. Compared to the pre-biomanipulation period, mean seasonal (May-September) Daphnia spp. biomass roughly doubled (0.037 g C m⁻³vs. 0.084 g C m⁻³). However, the predominance of small (<1 mm) D. cucullata throughout the whole investigation period indicated that planktivory was still substantial. Paired observations between edible phytoplankton biomass and Daphnia spp. indicated that a significant decline in algal stocks would only occur if herbivorous biomass was above a certain threshold (0.2 g C m⁻³). Reduced external and internal loading in concert with pelagic calcite precipitation were most likely responsible for the decline in lake phosphorus concentrations, thereby substantially improving the water quality of Feldberger Haussee. Although this is not supported by quantitative evidence, we hypothesize that resource-related water quality improvements were caused by changes in the structure of the pelagic community leading to increased calcite precipitation. In agreement with the results of other investigations, we conclude that because stabilising mechanisms such as macrophyte growth were lacking in Feldberger Haussee, biomanipulation in stratified lakes may not be as successful as has been observed in shallow lakes. However, in hard-water lakes, calcite precipitation may act as another stabilising resource-related mechanism. Phosphorus associated with sedimenting calcite particles is insensitive to redox-conditions and may therefore not be re-mobilised from lake sediments even if hypolimnetic oxygen is depleted.     

Summer Floods in Central Europe – Climate Change Track?

In Central Europe, river flooding has been recently recognized as a major hazard, in particular after the 1997 Odra /Oder flood, the 2001 Vistula flood, and the most destructive 2002 deluge on the Labe/Elbe. Major recent floods in central Europe are put in perspective and their common elements are identified. Having observed that flood risk and vulnerability are likely to have grown in many areas, one is curious to understand the reasons for growth. These can be sought in socio-economic domain (humans encroaching into floodplain areas), terrestrial systems (land-cover changes – urbanization, deforestation, reduction of wetlands, river regulation), and climate system. The atmospheric capacity to absorb moisture, its potential water content, and thus potential for intense precipitation, are likely to increase in a warmer climate. The changes in intense precipitation and high flows are examined, based on observations and projections. Study of projected changes in intense precipitation, using climate models, for several areas of central Europe, and in particular, for drainage basins of the upper Labe/Elbe, Odra/Oder, and Vistula is reported. Significant changes have been identified between future projections and the reference period, of relevance to flood hazard in areas, which have experienced severe recent floodings.     

Tectonic episodicity and convective feedback mechanisms

The evolution of the Earth is characterized by irreversible processes: radioactive decay of the major heat-producing elements, thermal convection and chemical segregation. The prevailing heating from within and the temperature dependence of the viscosity are essential for thermal convection. In the present paper, the chemical and thermal evolution of the mantle and the generation of the continent material are represented by a two-dimensional and finite-difference Boussinesq convection model. We have incorporated the above-mentioned principal features in this model, a geochemical paper by Hofmann (1988, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 90: 297–314) constituting our starting point for the distribution of the radionuclides. The concentration of the radionuclides and the viscosity are functions of the location and time developing according to our system of differential equations. Although the real Earth is a much more complex system, we have dared to make a comparison with observed geophysical and geological data; we obtain a depleted upper mantle and acceptable values for the heat flow on the surface of the Earth as well as for the distribution of temperature, viscosity and of the velocity of creep in the mantle. The ups and downs of the convective vigour of the model roughly resemble the supercontinental cycles, the world-wide distribution of mineral dates in time, the sea-level variations and the variations of a number of geochemical parameters.