Petrology, geochronology and tectonic implications of Mesozoic high Ba–Sr granites in the Haemi area, Hongseong Belt, South Korea

Collision between the North and South China continental blocks began in the Korean peninsula during the Permian (290–260 Ma). The Haemi area in the Hongseong collision belt (proposed as the eastern extension in South Korea of the Dabie–Sulu collision zone of China) within the Gyeonggi Massif comprises post-collisional high Ba–Sr granite with intermediate enclaves that intruded into the Precambrian rocks. The intermediate enclaves have a shoshonitic affinity whereas the granite is a high-K calc-alkaline variety. The chondrite-normalized rare earth element (REE) pattern with relative enrichment of LREE over HREE and absence of a significant negative Eu anomaly typifies both enclaves and granite. Geochemical similarities of enclaves and granite are attributed to the involvement of enriched mantle sources in their genesis. However, dominant crustal components were involved in the formation of high Ba–Sr granites. A granite crystallization age of 233 ± 2 Ma was obtained from SHRIMP U–Pb zircon dating. This age is slightly younger than the Triassic collision event in the Hongseong Belt. Geochemical data, U–Pb zircon age, and regional tectonics indicate that the Haemi high Ba–Sr granite formed in a post-collisional tectonic environment. A Mesozoic post-collisional lithospheric delamination model can account for the genesis of high Ba–Sr granite in the Haemi area.     

Sedimentation patterns in the Selenga River delta under changing hydroclimatic conditions

The Selenga River delta (Russia) is a large (>600 km²) fluvially dominated fresh water system that transfers water and sediment from an undammed drainage basin into Lake Baikal, a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site. Through sedimentation processes, the delta and its wetlands provide important environmental services, such as storage of sediment‐bound pollutants (e.g., metals), thereby reducing their input to Lake Baikal. However, in the Selenga River delta and many other deltas of the world, there is a lack of knowledge regarding impacts of potential shifts in the flow regime (e.g., due to climate change and other anthropogenic impacts) on sedimentation processes, including sediment exchanges between deltaic channels and adjacent wetlands. This study uses field measurements of water velocities and sediment characteristics in the Selenga River delta, investigating conditions of moderate discharge, which have become more frequent over the past decades (at the expense of peak flows, Q > 1,350 m³ s^?1). The aims are to determine if the river system under moderate flow conditions is capable of supporting sediment export from the main distributary channels of the delta to the adjacent wetlands. The results show that most of the deposited sediment outside of the deltaic channels is characterized by a large proportion of silt and clay material (i.e., <63 μm). For example, floodplain lakes function as sinks of very fine sediment (e.g., 97% of sediment by weight < 63 μm). Additionally, bed material sediment is found to be transported outside of the channel margins during conditions of moderate and high water discharge conditions (Q ≥ 1,000 m³ s^?1). Submerged banks and marshlands located in the backwater zone of the delta accumulate sediment during such discharges, supporting wetland development. Thus, these regions likely sequester various metals bound to Selenga River sediment.     

Semiparametric regression models for spatial prediction and uncertainty quantification of soil attributes

In many studies, the distribution of soil attributes depends on both spatial location and environmental factors, and prediction and process identification are performed using existing methods such as kriging. However, it is often too restrictive to model soil attributes as dependent on a known, parametric function of environmental factors, which kriging typically assumes. This paper investigates a semiparametric approach for identifying and modeling the nonlinear relationships of spatially dependent soil constituent levels with environmental variables and obtaining point and interval predictions over a spatial region. Frequentist and Bayesian versions of the proposed method are applied to measured soil nitrogen levels throughout Florida, USA and are compared to competing models, including frequentist and Bayesian kriging, based an array of point and interval measures of out-of-sample forecast quality. The semiparametric models outperformed competing models in all cases. Bayesian semiparametric models yielded the best predictive results and provided empirical coverage probability nearly equal to nominal.     

Influence of frost weathering on the recession of surfaces of technogenic landforms in Yakutia

The article assesses the influence of permafrost weathering on the rate of destruction of technogenic land forms, as exhibited on as illustrated by the railway embankment of the Amur-Yakut mainline in the Sakha Republic(Yakutia). Studies were carried out on a railway section more than 375 km long. The subsidence rate of the embankment slopes and structural excavations was determined using laboratory methods that simulate various mechanisms of temperature(with a transition through 0 ℃) impact on rocks. For the first time, a quantitative assessment of the influence of cryogenic weathering on the stability of the railway in the region belonging to the northern building-climatic zone is given. For the territory under consideration, embankment rocks were experimentally determined to undergo more than 100 freezing and thawing cycles during a year. Under the existing climatic conditions, cryogenic weathering actively affects the embankment of the railway to a depth of 30 cm. Most of the embankment deformations detected during field observations are due to defects in the integrity of this particular layer. The size of the disintegrating layer of particular types of rock comprising the railway embankment has been established as reaching 10 cm per year. In 5 years following the formation of embankments comprising the upper structure of the railroad tracks, the physical and mechanical properties of rocks, which initially had a tensile strength for uniaxial compression in the range of 40-70 MPa, were reduced by more than 50%. According to the authors, the establishment of regional cryohypergenesis features is universal in nature and can be applied to solving a wide range of tasks related to the assessment and prediction of the degree of cryogenic transformation of rocks having different structural properties.     

Wave propagation in a transversely isotropic porous ocean bottom

Abstract

The equations of wave motion are considered in this article for three-layered medium which consists of liquid and porous layers with finite depth and solid half-space such as ocean bed. By virtue of scalar potential functions for each layer, complicated differential equations of layers are reduced to ordinary differential equations. An analytical method is applied to determine the Green’s functions of media based on an arbitrary shaped time-harmonic excitation at the interface of liquid and porous layers. A Mathcad code is provided to compute the complex integrals. Displacement and stress fields of three layers are discussed. Comparing with special cases, existing answers represent the validity of the proposed method. Numerical results are carried out for circular patch, ring and point loads, and the effects of various parameters on the behavior of the system are plotted. Finally, the achieved results were under discussion.     

Bronze-early iron age environment of the Iman River Basin,Russian far east

Three archaeological sites of the Bronze and Early Iron Ages were investigated using palynological methods. To interpret the fossil spectra more accurately, recent pollen from alluvium, surface soil and cultural layers within modern villages were also studied in the area. During the time interval when the ancient cultural layers accumulated, thinned-out birch forests were replaced by mixed coniferous and broad-leaved trees. This might have been caused by climatic transition which possibly influenced the changing cultural traditions within the area. The climatic transition also includes a change in humidity. The wettest stages are recorded by pollen data during the transition period between the Bronze and Early Iron Age. This corresponds to the Subboreal/Subatlantic boundary within the European Holocene (around 2500 yr B.P.). © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Kamenetsk—A new impact structure in the Ukrainian Shield

The Kamenetsk impact structure is a deeply eroded simple crater that formed in crystalline rocks of the Ukrainian Shield. This study presents structural, lithologic, and shock metamorphic evidence for an impact origin of the Kamenetsk structure, which was previously described as a paleovolcano. The Kamenetsk structure is an oval depression that is 1.0–1.2 km in diameter and 130 m deep. The structure is deeply eroded, and only the lower part of the sequence of lithic breccia has been preserved in the deepest part of the crater to recent time, while the predominant part of impact rocks and postimpact sediments was eroded. Manifestations of shock metamorphism of minerals, especially planar deformation features in quartz and feldspars, were determined by petrographic investigations of lithic breccia that allowed us to determine the impact origin of the Kamenetsk structure. The erosion of the crater and surrounding target to a minimal depth of 220 m preceded the deposition of the postimpact sediments. The time of the formation of the Kamenetsk structure is bracketed within a wide interval from 2.0 to 2.1 Ga, the age of the crystalline target rocks, to the Late Miocene age of the sediments overlaying the crater. The deep erosion of the structure suggests it is probably Paleozoic in age.     

Dissolved oxygen dynamics in a eutrophic estuary,Upper Newport Bay,California

Eutrophication often causes hypoxia in estuarine and coastal systems, but the mechanisms that control hypoxic events vary among estuaries and are often difficult to discern. We monitored surface and bottom dissolved oxygen (DO) in the Upper Newport Bay (UNB), a tidally mixed estuary in southern California subject to anthropogenic nutrient loading, eutrophication and hypoxia. Our goal was to identify the environmental factors regulating DO dynamics. Six hypoxic events occurred between June and November and were associated with a combination of low solar radiation, increased freshwater discharge following precipitation, and enhanced haline stratification during reduced tidal range periods. At the head of the estuary, high macroalgal biomass and pronounced haline stratification resulted in high DO in the surface layer and low DO in the bottom layer. Oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor waters were transported down-estuary by ebb tides, resulting in DO heterogeneity throughout the UNB. Cross-wavelet analysis illustrated the down-estuary propagation of high/low DO signal correlated with the phases of diurnal photosynthetic and semi-diurnal tidal cycles.     

Uranium Behavior in the Process of Primary Pitchblende Ores Alteration by the Post‐ore Hydrothermal Solutions: An Application to Assessment of Uranium Migration from Underground Spent Nuclear Fuel Repositories

It has been shown that the main uranium ore mineral, pitchblende (uranium dioxide), is a natural analog of synthetic uraninite (also uranium dioxide), which constitutes 96% of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). Geochronological studies of the U‐Pb isotope systems in unaltered pitchblende from the orebodies reveal that these systems remained completely closed over the entire period (approximately 135 Ma) since the formation of the deposits. The bulk of the primary uranium ores within the Streltsovskoye ore field was influenced to various degrees by post‐ore hydrothermal solutions that led to pitchblende spherulites being replaced by pseudomorphs of an amorphous phase with a U‐Si composition; this phase also re‐precipitated in veinlets proximal to the pitchblende pseudomorphs. A technique specially developed by the authors was used to carry out quantitative counts of the abundance of uranium minerals by calculating the uranium mass balance in one of the orebodies subjected to hydrothermal alteration. The calculations reveal minimal uranium loss from the orebody. Uranium liberated in the process of the pseudomorphic replacement of pitchblende was immediately fixed, in situ, in the newly formed coffinite‐like amorphous U‐Si phase as a result of the development of an efficient geochemical barrier that prevented the long‐distance migration of uranium. In assessing the long‐term safety of underground SNF repositories, the results of the present study give us confidence that SNF uraninite, in terms of the preservation of its integrity as a mineral phase, provides for the reliable long‐term isolation of uranium, transuranium elements, and fission products that are “sealed” in the uraninite matrix. In the case of the mineral transformation of the uraninite matrix by hydrothermal solutions, the liberated uranium would be efficiently immobilized by the newly formed amorphous U‐Si phase.