Rapid exhumation of basement rocks along the northern margin of the North China craton in the early Jurassic: evidence from the Xiabancheng Basin,Yanshan Tectonic Belt

Early Mesozoic Basins in the Yanshan Fold–Thrust Belt (YFTB), located along the northern margin of the North China Craton (NCC), record significant intraplate deformation of unknown age. In this article, we present evidence for the rapid exhumation of high‐grade basement rocks along the northern margin of the NCC in the Early Mesozoic. U–Pb geochronology of detrital zircons constrains the maximum depositional ages of syntectonic sedimentary units that formed during the unroofing of basement rocks and plutons in the Xiabancheng Basin. In the Early Mesozoic, the Xiabancheng Basin recorded a dramatic transformation in depositional environments, related to a significant change in the regional tectonic setting. In this study, the tectonic evolution of the YFTB is established from paleocurrent data and U–Pb zircon ages of sandstone and granitic gravels of the Xingshikou Formation, Xiabancheng Basin. The paleocurrent direction of meandering fluvial facies in the Triassic Liujiagou and Ermaying Formations are from east to west. In contrast, the overlying Xingshikou Formation consists of alluvial fan facies with paleocurrent directions from north‐northwest to south‐southeast. The lower and middle segments of the Xingshikou Formation record rapid exhumation of basement rocks along the northern margin of the NCC. U‐Pb ages of detrital zircons within the Xingshikou Formation are characterized by three major U–Pb age groups: 2.2–2.5 Ga, 1.7–1.8 Ga and 193–356 Ma. From 193 Ma to 356 Ma, a subsidiary peak occurs at 198 ± 5 Ma, constraining the sedimentation age of the Xingshikou Formation to the Early Jurassic. Zircon from the Wangtufang pluton in the northern portion of the Xiabancheng Basin yields U–Pb ages of 191 ± 1 Ma and 207 ± 1 Ma. Within error, these crystallization ages are identical to detrital zircon ages of 206 ± 1 Ma and 206 ± 2 Ma obtained for granitic gravel clasts in the Xingshikou Formation. Thus, the Wangtufang pluton and surrounding basement rocks must have experienced rapid uplift and exhumation during the Early Jurassic. The onset of exhumation along the northern margin of the NCC occurred at ca. 198–180 Ma.     

用CAPPI和PPI资料测定区域降水量精度比较

应用上海中心气象台７１４数字化天气雷达的体积扫描资料所得的不同高度上的ＣＡＰＰＩ资料和低仰角时ＰＰＩ资料。估算区域降水量并得到降水量分布形势。然后采用平均校准法进行了校准，最后又与用雨量计网测量的区域降水量及其分布形势作了比较，得到一些有意义的结果。     

Impact of Gas Adsorption Induced Coal Matrix Damage on the Evolution of Coal Permeability

It has been widely reported that coal permeability can change from reduction to enhancement due to gas adsorption even under the constant effective stress condition, which is apparently inconsistent with the classic theoretical solutions. This study addresses this inconsistency through explicit simulations of the dynamic interactions between coal matrix swelling/shrinking induced damage and fracture aperture alteration, and translations of these interactions to permeability evolution under the constant effective stress condition. We develop a coupled coal–gas interaction model that incorporates the material heterogeneity and damage evolution of coal, which allows us to couple the progressive development of damage zone with gas adsorption processes within the coal matrix. For the case of constant effective stress, coal permeability changes from reduction to enhancement while the damage zone within the coal matrix develops from the fracture wall to further inside the matrix. As the peak Langmuir strain is approached, the decrease of permeability halts and permeability increases with pressure. The transition of permeability reduction to permeability enhancement during gas adsorption, which may be closely related to the damage zone development in coal matrix, is controlled by coal heterogeneity, external boundary condition, and adsorption-induced swelling.     

Change analysis of rice area and production in China during the past three decades

Rice＇s spatial-temporal distributions, which are critical for agricultural, environ- mental and food security research, are affected by natural conditions as well as socio-eco- nomic developments. Based on multi-source data, an effective model named the Spatial Production Allocation Model （SPAM） which integrates arable land distribution, administrative unit statistics of crop data, agricultural irrigation data and crop suitability data, was used to get a series of spatial distributions of rice area and production with 10-km pixels at a national scale -it was applied from the early 1980s onwards and used to analyze the pattern of spatial and temporal changes. The results show that significant changes occurred in rice in China during 1980-2010. Overall, more than 50% of the rice area decreased, while nearly 70% of rice production increased in the change region during 1980-2010. Spatially, most of the increased area and production were in Northeast China, especially, in Jilin and Heilongjiang; most of the decreased area and production were located in Southeast China, especially, in regions of rapidly urbanization in Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang. Thus, the centroid of rice area was moved northeast approximately 230 km since 1980, and rice production about 320 km, which means rice production moved northeastward faster than rice area because of the significant rice yield increase in Northeast China. The results also show that rice area change had a decisive impact on rice production change. About 54.5% of the increase in rice pro- duction is due to the expansion of sown area, while around 83.2% of the decrease in rice production is due to contraction of rice area. This implies that rice production increase may be due to area expansion and other non-area factors, but reduced rice production could largely be attributed to rice area decrease.     

Sequence architecture and depositional evolution of the Ordovician carbonate platform margins in the Tarim Basin and its response to tectonism and sea‐level change

The sequence architecture and depositional evolution of the Ordovician carbonate platform margins in the Tarim Basin, China, were formed in response to the interplay of tectonism and sea‐level change, their history being documented by the integrated analysis of many seismic lines, drilling and outcrop data. The Ordovician carbonate system in the basin is divided into four composite sequences defined by major unconformities. Each sequence consists of a regional depositional cycle from transgression with an onlapping transgressive systems tract (TST) to regression with a prograding highstand systems tract (HST), and can be further subdivided into 10 third‐order sequences based on subordinate discontinuous boundaries at the carbonate platform marginal zones. Constrained by the marginal slope of the early‐rifted Manjiaer aulacogen, the carbonate platform margins of the Lower and Middle Ordovician that prograded eastward in an arcuate belt extending generally north‐south across the northern part of the basin. The development of the Tazhong uplift due to compression resulted in an extensive paleokarst hiatus between the Middle and the Upper Ordovician in the south‐central basin, and subsequently constrained the formation of a peninsula‐shaped carbonate platform whose margins were controlled by marginal thrust‐fault belts of the paleo‐uplift during the Late Ordovician. In the northern basin, the Late Ordovician carbonate platform margin developed around the marginal slope of the Tabei paleouplift. The transgressive–regressive cycles of the carbonate system are comparable and seem to have occurred simultaneously across the entire basin, suggesting that the cyclic sequence architecture was fundamentally controlled by eustatic fluctuations. Stacking patterns of the composite sequences varied due to the interplay between the accommodation produced by tectonism and sea‐level change, and the carbonate production rate. The reef–shoal facies complexes that developed along the platform margins, with paleokarst development at unconformities, constitute the major reservoir of large petroleum reserves in the basin.     

The first extra-large helium-rich gas field identified in a tight sandstone of the Dongsheng Gas Field,Ordos Basin,China

Science China Earth Sciences - Helium gas is a scarce but important strategic resource, which is usually associated with natural gas. Presently, only one extra-large helium-rich gas field has been...     

Potential promoted productivity and spatial patterns of medium- and low-yield cropland land in China

With a continuously increasing population and better food consumption levels, improving the efficiency of arable land use and increasing its productivity have become fundamental strategies to meet the growing food security needs in China. A spatial distribution map of medium- and low-yield cropland is necessary to implement plans for cropland improvement. In this study, we developed a new method to identify high-, medium-, and low-yield cropland from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data at a spatial resolution of 500 m. The method could be used to reflect the regional heterogeneity of cropland productivity because the classification standard was based on the regionalization of cropping systems in China. The results showed that the proportion of high-, medium-, and low-yield cropland in China was 21%, 39%, and 40%, respectively. About 75% of the low-yield cropland was located in hilly and mountainous areas, and about 53% of the high-yield cropland was located in plain areas. The five provinces with the largest area of high-yield cropland were all located in the Huang-Huai-Hai region, and the area amounted to 42% of the national high-yield cropland area. Meanwhile, the proportion of high-yield cropland was lower than 15% in Heilongjiang, Sichuan, and Inner Mongolia, which had the largest area allocated to cropland in China. If all the medium-yield cropland could be improved to the productive level of high-yield cropland and the low-yield cropland could be improved to the level of medium-yield cropland, the total productivity of the land would increase 19% and 24%, respectively.     

Validation of the effects of temperature simulated by multi-model ensemble and prediction of mean temperature changes for the next three decades in China

Using series of daily average temperature observations over the period of 1961–1999 of 701 meteorological stations in China, and simulated results of 20 global climate models (such as BCCR_BCM2.0, CGCM3T47) during the same period as the observation, we validate and analyze the simulated results of the models by using three factor statistical method, achieve the results of multi- model ensemble, test and verify the results of multi-model ensemble by using the observation data during the period of 1991–1999. Finally, we analyze changes of the annual mean temperature result of multi-mode ensemble prediction for the period of 2011–2040 under the emission scenarios A2, A1B and B1. Analyzed results show that: (1) Global climate models can reproduce Chinese regional spatial distribution of annual mean temperature, especially in low latitudes and eastern China. (2) With the factor of the trend of annual mean temperature changes in reference period, there is an obvious bias between the model and the observation. (3) Testing the result of multi-model ensemble during the period of 1991–1999, we can simulate the trend of temperature increase. Compared to observation, the result of different weighing multi-model ensemble prediction is better than the same weighing ensemble. (4) For the period of 2011–2040, the growth of the annual mean temperature in China, which results from multi-mode ensemble prediction, is above 1 °C. In the spatial distribution of annual mean temperature, under the emission scenarios of A2, A1B and B1, the trend of growth in South China region is the smallest, the increment is less than or equals to 0.8 °C; the trends in the northwestern region and south of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are the largest, the increment is more than 1 °C.     

GEOCHRONOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS FOR INTERPRETING THE PALEOCLIMATIC HISTORY OF THE TIBETAN PLATEAU

在当前全球变化背景下,青藏高原冰川急剧退缩严重影响着东亚地区水资源.为了有效地规划水资源,需要对高原气候变化及其机制有深入的理解.尽管在青藏高原及周边地区有大量的古气候记录,但是目前对高原气候的时空变化及其机制仍缺乏深入一致的认识.青藏高原冰川、树轮和石笋记录可以提供过去气候变化的框架,但是这些记录的分布局限于一些特定的地理区域.青藏高原上广泛分布的湖泊沉积物是研究高原气候的时空变化及其机制的优良介质.湖泊沉积物岩芯的年龄控制主要依赖于放射性碳同位素定年,但大多数高原湖泊具有碳库效应,为建立沉积岩芯年代控制需要进行碳库年龄校正所带来的年龄误差目前未有深入研究,这在某种程度上制约了利用湖泊沉积物记录研究高原气候时空变化及其机制.本文比较了目前确定高原湖泊碳库年龄的方法并提出建议采用的方法,汇总目前己发表的高原湖泊碳库年龄,讨论湖泊现代碳库年龄的空间分布及其影响因素,讨论湖泊碳库过去变化及其可能造成的岩芯年代控制误差;以青海湖和班公错两个高原湖泊已发表的记录为例讨论过去碳库年龄变化可能造成对记录完全不同的解释;还讨论了由碳库效应校正而带来的湖泊沉积物岩芯年龄控制误差对青藏高原湖泊记录的末次盛冰期终止年代的空间分布及其对变化机制解释的影响.如果考虑碳库效应的过去变化,目前所观测到的高原气候时空变化及其机制需要重新解释.因此,为了更好地理解青藏高原气候时空变化及其机制,我们需要更多有良好定年、高分辨率和定量化的湖泊记录,本文也建议在解释目前湖泊记录时需要应对年龄控制极大重视.     

GPS automatic monitoring system for outside deformation of Geheyan Dam on the Qingjiang River

In this paper, the background of developing GPS Automatic Monitoring System for outside deformation of Geheyan Dam is described concisely. The framework, precision and features of the system are stated in detail. Finally, the prospective application of the system is introduced.