Middle and Late Devonian microbial carbonates,reefs and mounds in Guilin,South China and their sequence stratigraphic,paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic significance

The importance of calcimicrobes and microbialite in carbonate platform and reefal environments has been stressed in recent literature. Burne and Moore[1] introduced the term microbialite to describe the clotted, laminated and undifferentiated fabrics formed by mi-crobial communities. Microbialites are organosedi-mentary deposits that have accreted as a result of ben-thic (prokaryotic or eukaryotic) communities, trapping and binding detrital sediment[1]. Microbial organisms and microbialite are…     

Transition from platemargin to intraplate environment: Geochemistry of basalts in Paleogene Liaohe basin,northeastern China

Mesozoic and Cenozoic volcanic rocks are widely distributed in the circum-Pacific area of eastern China. These rocks have long been genetically linked to westward subduction of the paleo-Pacific oceanic plate to the eastern Asia continent[1,2]. Research in re-cent years[3―6] has attained conclusions that a simple paleo-Pacific subduction model does not work well in interpreting all the volcanic rocks in eastern China, although some of them could be attributed to circum-Pacific interaction …     

The secular variation of inner zone high energy proton environment in the SAA

The main portion of the inner radiation belt en-countered by spacecraft in low-Earth orbits (LEOs) is concentrated over the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) where satellites observed the highest particle flux. The anomaly arises from the Earth’s magnetic field being less intense in the region centered near the east of the Atlantic coast of South America. The trapped radiation belt particles therefore have their lowest mirroring altitudes over the center region of the SAA. Drift shells in t…     

Adsorption of As on hydroxy-Fe-montmorillonite complexes

DOI: 10.1360/03yd0553 Arsenic, a toxic element, is ubiquitous in the earth’s crust and may lead to health risks for humans. This may come about as a result of oxidative weathering and dissolution of As-containing minerals, use of ar-senical pesticides, excess use of some fertilizers and from mine drainage, smelter wastes and agricultural drainage water from certain arid regions. The dis-solved inorganic arsenic is transported in surface or2156 Science in China Ser. D Earth Sciences groun…     

Spatial heterogeneity of the driving forces of cropland change in China

Along with the increasing problems of rapid popu-lation increase, resources scarcity and environment deterioration, the interaction between human devel-opment and natural environment changes, especially the Land-Use/Land-Cover, LUCC issue is becoming a frontier and hot field[1], in which investigation on the mechanisms of land use change is one of the three core issues. Deficient natural resources, in particular the shortage of cropland resource in China, are the important constraints to Ch…     

Analysis on the decadal scale variation of the dust storm in North China

Dust storm is a disastrous weather that can cause serious environmental consequences and hazards. It causes excessive soil mass and nutrient loss in source areas, and air pollution in deposition area, which result in bad influence on agriculture, industry, traffic, and peoples’ daily life[1-4]. Dust storm can also affect the thermal balance of planetary radiation and then lead to meso- to macroscale climatic modification[5-7]. North- west China and North China are two high-frequency centers …     

Energy distributions of the large-scale horizontal currents caused by wind in the baroclinic ocean

Wind is the main energy source for the generation of the internal waves and the ocean mixing. Wunsch[1] estimated that about 1 TW (1 TW = 1012 W) energy was transported into the ocean from the winds by us-ing the altimeter data. Watanabe et al.[2] numerically calculated that the mixing processes obtained 0.7 TW energy from the global wind, which afforded most of the energy needed by the maintenance of the Merid-ional Overturning Circulation (MOC). During the past 50 years, in the Norther…     

Isotopic evidence of TSR origin for natural gas bearing high H<Subscript>2</Subscript>S contents within the Feixianguan Formation of the northeastern Sichuan Basin,southwestern China

The northeastern area of Sichuan Basin, southwestern China, is the area with the maximal reserve of natural gas containing higher hydrogen sulphide (H₂S) that has been found among the petroliferous basins of China, with the proven and controlled gas reserve of more than 200 billion cubic meters. These gas pools, with higher H₂S contents averaging 9%, some 17%, are mainly distributed on structural belts of Dukouhe, Tieshanpo, Luojiazhai, Puguang, etc., while the oolitic-shoal dolomite of the Triassic Feixianguan Fm. (T₁f) is the reservoir. Although many scholars regard the plentiful accumulation of H₂S within the deep carbonate reservoir as the result of Thermochemical Sulfate Reduction (TSR), however, the process of TSR as well as its residual geological and geochemical evidence is still not quite clear. Based on the carbon isotopic analysis of carbonate strata and secondary calcite, etc., together with the analysis of sulfur isotopes within H₂S, sulphur, gypsum, iron pyrites, etc., as well as other aspects including the natural gas composition, carbon isotopes of hydrocarbons reservoir petrology, etc., it has been proved that the above natural gas is a product of TSR. The H₂S, sulphur and calcite result from the participation of TSR reactions by hydrocarbon gas. During the process for hydrocarbons being consumed due to TSR, the carbons within the hydrocarbon gas participate in the reactions and finally are transferred into the secondary calcite, and become the carbon source of secondary calcite, consequently causing the carbon isotopes of the secondary calcite to be lower (−18.2‰). As for both the intermediate product of TSR, i.e. sulfur, and its final products, i.e. H₂S and iron pyrites, their sulfur elements are all sourced from the sulfate within the Feixianguan Fm. During the fractional processes of sulfur isotopes, the bond energy leads to the ³²S being released firstly, and the earlier it is released, the lower δ ³⁴S values for the generated sulphide (H₂S) or sulfur will be. However, for the anhydrite that participates in reactions, the higher the reaction degree, the more ³²S is released, while the less ³²S remains and the more δ ³⁴S is increased. The testing results have proved the process of the dynamic fractionation of sulfur isotopes.     

<Superscript>40</Superscript>Ar/<Superscript>39</Superscript>Ar chronology and geochemistry of high-K volcanic rocks in the Mangkang basin,Tibet

Our two newly obtained high-quality ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar ages suggest that the high-K volcanic rocks of the Lawuxiang Formation in the Mangkang basin, Tibet were formed at 33.5 ± 0.2 Ma. The tracing of elemental and Pb-Sr-Nd isotopic geochemistry indicates that they were derived from an EM2 enriched mantle in continental subduction caused by transpression. Their evidently negative anomalies in HFSEs such as Nb and Ta make clear that there is an input of continental material into the mantle source. The high-K rocks at 33.5 ± 0.2 Ma in the Mangkang basin may temporally, spatially and compositionally compare with the early one of two-pulse high-K rocks in eastern Tibet distinguished by Wang J. H. et al., implying that they were formed in the same tectonic setting.     

Sudden enhancement of sedimentation flux of <Superscript>210</Superscript>Pb<Subscript>ex</Subscript> as an indicator of lake productivity as exemplified by Lake Chenghai

The fundamental assumption of ²¹⁰Pb sediment dating is the stable flux of ²¹⁰Pb_ex, which was derived from atmosphere and then transferred into sediments via lake water. When the sedimentation rate is relatively constant, the ²¹⁰Pb_ex activity in sediments will be exponentially reduced with sedimentation age. ²¹⁰Pb_ex in lake water is incorporated into sediments mainly via organic particulates. If the sedimentation flux of organic matter in lake water is suddenly increased, ²¹⁰Pb_ex will be significantly deposited and then transferred into sediments. On the one hand such sudden purification effect is obviously unfit for the fundamental assumption of ²¹⁰Pb dating; on the other hand, the sudden enhancement of ²¹⁰Pb_ex flux would be indicative of the conspicuous variation of primary productivity of lake water. This problem will be discussed in accordance with the variation trend of ²¹⁰Pb_ex in the vertical profile of recent sediments of Lake Chenghai, Yunnan Province. The sediment core was collected from the deep-water area of Lake Chenghai in June 1997. The vertical profile of ¹³⁷Cs activity is characterized by a tree-peak pattern. This profile gave reliable ages, and also showed the stability of sediment accumulation in the recent ten years. The vertical profile of ²¹⁰Pb_ex activity displays a specific distribution of peaks, and is similar to the vertical profile of C_org. This phenomenon seems to be related to the mechanism of constraining the transfer of ²¹⁰Pb_ex into lake sediments. The average atomic ratios of H_org/C_org and C_org/N_org in Lake Chenghai sediments are 5.51 and 7.04, respectively, indicating that the organic matter was predominantly derived from the remains of endogenic algae. In terms of the three-stage evolutionary characteristics of organic matter in sediments, i.e., “deposition-de-composition-accumulation”, the sedimentation fluxes (F(C_org)) of organic carbon (C_org) since 1970 were calculated by modeling. The sedimentation fluxes of ²¹⁰Pb_ex (F(²¹⁰Pb_ex)) in different years display good synchronous relations with the sedimentation flux of organic carbon (F(C_org)), especially in the years of 1972–1974 and 1986–1989. The variation of F(C_org) led to the variation of F(²¹⁰Pb_ex); the variation of F(²¹⁰Pb_ex) reflects, to some extent, the historical variation of lake productivity.