Distributary channels, sand lobes, and mesotopography of Navy Submarine Fan, California Borderland, with applications to ancient fan sediments

The deep-tow instrument package of Scripps Institution of Oceanography provides a unique opportunity to delineate small-scale features of a size comparable to those features usually described from ancient deep-sea fan deposits. On Navy Fan, the deep-tow side-scanning sonar readily detected steep channel walls and steps and terraces within channels. The most striking features observed in side-scan are large crescentic depressions commonly occurring in groups. These appear to be large scours or flutes carved by turbidity currents. Four distinct acoustic facies were mapped on the basis of qualitative assessment of reflectivity of 4 kHz reflection profiles. There is a distinct increase in depth of acoustic penetration, number of sub-bottom reflectors, and reflector continuity from the upper fan-valley to the lower fan. These changes are accompanied by a decrease in surface relief. Navy Fan is made up of three active sectors. The active upper fan is dominated by a single channel with prominent levees that decrease in height downstream. The active mid-fan region or suprafan is where sand is deposited. Well defined distributary channels with steps, terraces, and other mesotopography terminate in depositional lobes. Interchannel areas are rough, containing giant scours as well as other relief. The active lower fan accumulates mud and silt and is without resolvable surface morphology. The morphological features seen on Navy Fan other than levees, interchannel areas, and lobes are principally erosional. The distributary channels are up to 0.5 km wide and 5–15 m deep. Such features, because of their large size and low relief, are rarely completely exposed or easily detectable in ancient rock sequences. Some flute-shaped scours are larger than channels in cross section but many are 5-30 m across and 1-2 m deep. If observed in ancient rocks transverse to palaeo-current direction, they would perhaps be indistinguishable from channels. Surface sediment distribution combined with fan morphology can be used to relate modern sediments to facies models for ancient fan sediments. Gravel and sand occur in the upper valley, massive sand beds in the mid-fan distributary channels, classical complete Bouma sequences on depositional lobes, incomplete Bouma sequences (lacking division a) on the lower mid-fan, and Bouma sequence with lenticular shape or other limited extent on mid-fan interchannel areas and on levees.     

Miocene Basalts of the Blue Mountains Province in Oregon. I: Compositional Types and their Geological Settings

Miocene volcanism in the Blue Mountains province of centralOregon produced diverse basaltic rocks. One set of these, thePicture Gorge Formation of the Columbia River Basalt Group,is well known. Others (Bowman Dam, Bear Creek, and Slide Creekflows) are relatively poorly known. Only the Picture Gorge flowsin the center of the province are typical continental floodbasalts. Basaltic rocks with calc-alkaline affinities (evolvedBear Creek flows, Slide Creek basalts) are found to the westand east. Basal Bear Creek flows closely resemble MORB and islandarc tholeiites, despite having erupted on a continental plate.Bowman Dam (formerly ‘Prineville’) basalts are richin K₂O, P₂O₅, and Ba, and poor in Ni, Co, and Cr. Some of thesefeatures may reflect mantle metasomatism or crustal contamination.Thus, several currently debated theories of basalt petrogenesiscan be tested by studying flows erupted during Miocene timesin this relatively small area. Very few, if any, of these basaltic rocks represent primarymantle-derived magmas. Inferred depths of the pre-eruption magmareservoirs in which they were fractionated are shallow in thecenter of the province, deeper to the east and west. The E-W axis of Miocene calc-alkaline rocks in the Blue Mountainsprovince existed simultaneously with a N-S axis of calc-alkalineactivity in the Cascades that paralleled an offshore subductionzone. Current ideas of relationships among tectonic settingsand the compositions of volcanic rocks cannot easily be madeto conform with these facts.     

Geographical information systems and planning in the USA: selected municipal adoption trends and educational concerns

Abstract

Practitioners and academics from many fields of study are currently facing numerous issues involving the diffusion of technologies from geographical information systems within their respective professions. This paper has two aims. The first is to report the partial results of a postal survey of selected municipal planning departments in the U.S.A. In measuring trends related to the adoption of computer and geographical information system technologies, the survey focuses on the availability of trained geographical information system and computer literate staff and on alternative means of training existing staff, as well as on the adequacy of collegiate education. The presentation of survey results is used to establish a framework for the principal discussion of this paper. The second part examines the relationship between planning and education in geographical information systems. Parallels within other disciplines and professions are derived. Curricula and training considerations within academic programmes and professional practice are suggested.     

The thermal structure of continental crust in active orogens: insight from Miocene eclogite and granulite xenoliths of the Pamir Mountains

Rare ultrahigh‐temperature–(near)ultrahigh‐pressure (UHT–near‐UHP) crustal xenoliths erupted at 11 Ma in the Pamir Mountains, southeastern Tajikistan, preserve a compositional and thermal record at mantle depths of crustal material subducted beneath the largest collisional orogen on Earth. A combination of oxygen‐isotope thermometry, major‐element thermobarometry and pseudosection analysis reveals that, prior to eruption, the xenoliths partially equilibrated at conditions ranging from 815 °C at 19 kbar to 1100 °C at 27 kbar for eclogites and granulites, and 884 °C at 20 kbar to 1012 °C at 33 kbar for garnet–phlogopite websterites. To reach these conditions, the eclogites and granulites must have undergone mica‐dehydration melting. The extraction depths exceed the present‐day Pamir Moho at ～65 km depth and suggest an average thermal gradient of ～12–13 °C km^?1. The relatively cold geotherm implies the introduction of these rocks to mantle depths by subduction or gravitational foundering (transient crustal drip). The xenoliths provide a window into a part of the orogenic history in which crustal material reached UHT–(U)HP conditions, partially melted, and then decompressed, without being overprinted by the later post‐thermal relaxation history.     

A reappraisal of the Engelund bed load equation

Abstract

Many bed load transport equations have been developed from differing standpoints. The Engelund equation has been selected for scrutiny since, although it accords well with experimental data in general, it has limitations under conditions of high bed load transport rates. The application of two phase flow theory has been used to derive an alternative “Engelund” equation which may be applied to both high and low transport rates.     

Molecular palaeontology

A series of major advances in biology and organic geochemistry has yielded new and extremely powerful methods of recovering, purifying and identifying organic compounds. As a result it is now possible to extract considerable information from the vast reservoir of organic material present in rocks and fossils. New procedures allowing detailed investigation of the structure, composition and interrelationships of living molecules can also provide invaluable information on a timescale of geological proportions.     

Dissimilarity of Continental and Oceanic Rock Types1

Recent papers cite the similarity of rocks, particularly andesites,in continental and oceanic regions, but the similarity is primarilyone of name. The oceanic ‘andesites’ belong to thealkaline suite, whereas the typical continental andesites arecalc alkaline and hyperstheneor hornblende-bearing. To avoidfurther confusion it is suggested that the name ‘andesite’for the oceanic rocks be replaced by the names hawaiite andmugearite. Whatever name is used, it is essential to emphasizethe difference between the oceanic ‘andesites’ andthe andesites of continental orogenic regions. All members of the oceanic suite are present also in continentalregions, but the calc alkaline rocks characteristic of orogenicregions on the continents are absent within the true ocean basins,except in island arcs near the continents that were formerlyregarded as the continental border.