Segmentation and kinematics of the North America‐Caribbean plate boundary offshore Hispaniola

We explored the submarine portions of the Enriquillo–Plantain Garden Fault zone (EPGFZ) and the Septentrional–Oriente Fault zone (SOFZ) along the Northern Caribbean plate boundary using high‐resolution multibeam echo‐sounding and shallow seismic reflection. The bathymetric data shed light on poorly documented or previously unknown submarine fault zones running over 200 km between Haiti and Jamaica (EPGFZ) and 300 km between the Dominican Republic and Cuba (SOFZ). The primary plate‐boundary structures are a series of strike‐slip fault segments associated with pressure ridges, restraining bends, step overs and dogleg offsets indicating very active tectonics. Several distinct segments 50–100 km long cut across pre‐existing structures inherited from former tectonic regimes or bypass recent morphologies formed under the current strike‐slip regime. Along the most recent trace of the SOFZ, we measured a strike‐slip offset of 16.5 km, which indicates steady activity for the past ~1.8 Ma if its current GPS‐derived motion of 9.8 ± 2 mm a^?1 has remained stable during the entire Quaternary.     

Food habits and distribution of wintering canvasbacks,Aythya valisineria,on Chesapeake Bay

Baltic clams (Macoma balthica) were the predominant food items of 323 canvasbacks (Aythya valisineria) collected throughout Chesapeake Bay during 1970–1979. Natural vegetation constituted 4% of the food volume. Widgeongrass (Ruppia maritima) and redhead grass (Potamogeton perfoliatus) constituted the greatest percent volume and frequency of occurrence among the plant species, whereas wild celery (Vallisneria americana) constituted only a trace of the food volume. These results contrast with historical records of food habits of canvasbacks in Chesapeake Bay. Canvasback population estimates during the 1970’s were examined to detect annual and seasonal changes in distribution. Linear regression analyses of winter canvasback populations in the bay showed a significant decline in the upper-bay and middle-bay populations, but no significant changes in the lower-bay and Potomac River populations. The changes in winter distribution and abundance of the canvasback appear related to changes in natural food availability, which is the result of altered environmental conditions.     

Middle Paleozoic paleomagnetism of east Kazakhstan: post-Middle Devonian rotations in a large-scale orocline in the central Ural–Mongol belt

In order to test different hypotheses concerning the Paleozoic evolution of the Ural–Mongol belt (UMB) and the amalgamation of Eurasia, we studied Middle Devonian basalts from two localities (11 sites) and Lower Silurian volcanics, redbeds, and intra-formational conglomerates from three localities (20 sites) in the Chingiz Range of East Kazakhstan. The Devonian rocks prove to be heavily overprinted in the late Paleozoic, and a high-temperature, presumably primary, southerly, and down component is isolated at only four sites from a homoclinal section. Most Silurian redbeds are found to be remagnetized in the late Paleozoic; in contrast, a bipolar near-horizontal remanence, isolated from Silurian volcanics, is most probably primary as indicated by positive tilt and conglomerate tests. Analysis of paleomagnetic data from the Chingiz Range shows that southward-pointing directions in Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian rocks are of normal polarity and hence indicate large-scale rotations after the Middle Devonian. The Chingiz paleomagnetic directions can be compared with Paleozoic data from the North Tien Shan and with the horseshoe-shaped distribution of subduction-related volcanic complexes in Kazakhstan. Both paleomagnetic and geological data support the idea that today's strongly curved volcanic belts of Kazakhstan are an orocline, deformed mostly before mid-Permian time. Despite the determination of nearly a dozen new Paleozoic paleopoles in this study and other recent publications by our team, significant temporal and spatial gaps remain in our knowledge of the paleomagnetic directions during the middle and late Paleozoic. However, the paleomagnetic results from the Chingiz Range and the North Tien Shan indicate that these areas show generally coherent motions with Siberia and Baltica, respectively.     

Structure and age of the northern Leeuwin Complex,Western Australia: Constraints from field mapping and U–Pb isotopic analysis

Rocks in the northern Leeuwin Complex of southwestern Australia preserve evidence of having formed during the breakup of Rodinia and the subsequent amalgamation of Gondwana. Detailed field mapping, structural investigation and U–Pb isotopic zircon analysis, using the Sensitive High‐mass Resolution Ion Microprobe (SHRIMP), have revealed that: (i) protoliths of pink granite gneiss and grey granodiorite gneiss crystallised at ca 750 Ma, coeval with breakup of western Rodinia; (ii) granulite/upper amphibolite facies metamorphism occurred at 522 ± 5 Ma, in the Early Cambrian, ～100 million years later than previous estimates and of identical age to estimates of the final amalgamation of Gondwana; and (iii) three major phases of ductile deformation occurred during or after this metamorphism and represent a progressive strain evolution from subvertical shortening (D1) to subhorizontal east‐west (D2) then north‐northwest‐south‐southeast (D3) contraction.     

The parnell quartz monzonite: A proterozoic zoned pluton in the archaean pilbara block,Western Australia

The Parnell Quartz Monzonite in the Pilbara Block of Western Australia is a Proterozoic (1731 ± 14 Ma) pluton characterized by high modal K‐feldspar and a greater abundance of hornblende relative to biotite, as is typical of Phanerozoic monzonitic rocks in eastern Australia. The only geochemical features reflecting its setting in an Archaean terrain are high Na2O, Ni and Cr. The pluton is zoned, with an increase in K‐feldspar, quartz and biotite and a decrease in plagioclase and hornblende from margin to core. Chemically, this zoning is reflected by systematic variation of CaO, K₂O, Na₂O, Sr and Rb, but ferromagnesian elements have irregular trends, implying preferential extraction of feldspars relative to mafic minerals during differentiation of the magma. The unusual geochemical trends are explained by a model involving ‘in situ’ feldspar fractionation of a K‐rich residual liquid from a mafic crystalline mush.

A parent magma similar to the average rock composition of the pluton is deduced because high ferromagnesian trace element abundances preclude extensive fractionation of mafic minerals. Geochemical and isotopic constraints suggest that the ultimate source was chemically similar to a shoshonitic basaltic andesite, that must have been emplaced beneath the eastern margin of the Pilbara Block in the Early Proterozoic. Subsequent partial melting of this postulated underplated source at ～ 1700 Ma to produce the Parnell Quartz Monzonite was probably associated with tectonism in the Gregory Range Complex.     

Otway Continental Margin Transect: Crustal architecture from wide‐angle seismic profiling across Australia's southern margin

The Otway Basin in southeastern Australia formed on a triangular‐shaped area of extended continental lithosphere during two extensional episodes in Cretaceous to Miocene times. The extent of the offshore continental margin is highlighted by Seasat/Geosat satellite altimeter data. The crustal architecture and structural features across this southeast Australian margin have been interpreted from offshore‐onshore wide‐angle seismic profiling data along the Otway Continental Margin Transect extending from the onshore Lake Condah High, through the town of Portland, to the deep Southern Ocean. Along the Otway Continental Margin Transect, the onshore half‐graben geometry of Early Cretaceous deposition gives way offshore to a 5 km‐thick slope basin (P‐wave velocity 2.2–4.6 km/s) to at least 60 km from the shoreline. At 120 km from the nearest shore in a water depth of 4220 m, sonobuoy data indicate a 4–5 km sedimentary sequence overlying a 7 km thick basement above the Moho at 15 km depth. Major fault zones affect the thickness of basin sequences in the onshore area (Tartwaup Fault Zone and its southeast continuation) and at the seaward edge of the Mussel Platform (Mussel Fault). Upper crustal basement is interpreted to be attenuated and thinned Palaeozoic rocks of the Delamerian and Lachlan Orogens (intruded with Jurassic volcanics) that thin from 16 km onshore to about 3.5 km at 120 km from the nearest shore. Basement rocks comprise a 3 km section with velocity 5.5–5.7 km/s overlying a deeper basement unit with velocity 6.15–6.35 km/s. The Moho shallows from a depth of 30 km onshore to 15 km depth at 120 km from the nearest shore, and then to about 12 km in the deep ocean at the limits of the transect (water depth 5200 m). The continent‐ocean boundary is interpreted to be at a prominent topographic inflection point 170 km from shore at the bottom of the continental slope in 4800 m of water. P‐wave velocities in the lower crust are 6.4–6.8 km/s, overlying a thin transition zone to an upper mantle velocity of 8.05 km/s beneath the Moho. Outstandingly clear Moho reflections seen in deep‐marine profiling data at about 10.3 s two‐way time under the slope basin and continent‐ocean boundary place further strong controls on crustal thickness. There is no evidence of massive high velocity (>7 km/s) intrusives/underplate material in the lower crust nor any synrift or early post‐rift subaerial volcanics, indicating that the Otway continental margin can be considered a non‐volcanic margin, similar in many respects to some parts of the Atlantic Ocean margins e.g. the Nova Scotia ‐ Newfoundland margin off Canada and the Galicia Bank off the Iberian Peninsula. Using this analogue, the prominent gravity feature trending northwest‐southeast at the continent‐ocean boundary may indicate the presence of highly serpentinised mantle material beneath a thin crust, but this has yet to be tested by detailed work.     

Frasnian rugose and tabulate corals from the eastern Taurus (Kozan region,Turkey)

A section near the Kilgen Lake (Adana Province) has yielded a fauna of rugose and tabulate corals including Disphyllum cf. rugosum (Wedekind, 1922), D. cf. curtum Hill, 1954, Wapitiphyllum sp., Thamnopora sp., and Alveolites sp. This coral assemblage is consistent with the previous Frasnian age assigned to the limestones of the Gümü?ali Formation. The rather well-preserved material provides new data on the structure and microstructure of Disphyllum and allows to describe in Thamnopora unusual calicinal morphology (septal ridges, median teeth, and pseudopercula) as well as new structures linked to the lateral increase (basal low wall, apical cul-de-sac).     

Origin of fine-scale sheeted granites by incremental injection of magma into active shear zones: examples from the Pilbara Craton, NW Australia

In the Archaean Pilbara Craton of Western Australia, three zones of heterogeneous centimetre- to metre-scale sheeted granites are interpreted to represent high-level, syn-magmatic shear zones. Evidence for the syn-magmatic nature of the shear zones include imbricated and asymmetrically rotated metre-scale orthogneiss xenoliths that are enveloped by leucogranite sheets that show no significant internal strain. At another locality, granite sheets have a strong shape-preferred alignment of K-feldspar, suggesting magmatic flow, while the asymmetric recrystallisation of the grain boundaries indicates that non-coaxial deformation continued acting upon the sheets under sub-solidus conditions. Elsewhere, randomly oriented centimetre-wide leucogranite dykes are realigned at a shear zone boundary to form semi-continuous, layer-parallel sheets within a magma-dominated, dextral shear zone.

It is proposed that the granite sheets formed by the incremental injection of magmas into active shear zones. Magma was sheared during laminar flow to produce the sheets that are aligned sub-parallel to the shear zone boundary. Individual sheets are fed by individual dykes, with up to 1000s of discrete injections in an individual shear zone. The sheets often lack microstructural evidence for magmatic flow, either because the crystal content of the magma was too low to record internal strain, or because of later recrystallisation.