A shallow subsurface controlled release facility in Bozeman, Montana, USA, for testing near surface CO2 detection techniques and transport models

A controlled field pilot has been developed in Bozeman, Montana, USA, to study near surface CO₂ transport and detection technologies. A slotted horizontal well divided into six zones was installed in the shallow subsurface. The scale and CO₂ release rates were chosen to be relevant to developing monitoring strategies for geological carbon storage. The field site was characterized before injection, and CO₂ transport and concentrations in saturated soil and the vadose zone were modeled. Controlled releases of CO₂ from the horizontal well were performed in the summers of 2007 and 2008, and collaborators from six national labs, three universities, and the U.S. Geological Survey investigated movement of CO₂ through the soil, water, plants, and air with a wide range of near surface detection techniques. An overview of these results will be presented.     

Source‐to‐sink relationships along the South‐Central Chilean margin: evidence from detrital apatite fission‐track analysis

Detrital fission‐track studies on sedimentary basins surrounding eroding mountain belts provide a powerful tool to reconstruct exhumation histories of the source area. However, examples from active arc‐trench systems are sparse. In this study, we report detrital apatite fission‐track (AFT) data from Holocene and Pleistocene turbiditic trench and modern river sediments at the Chilean margin (36°S‐47°S). Sediment petrography and detrital AFT data point to different major sediment sources, underlining the need for multidisciplinary studies: whereas sediment petrography indicates the erosion of large volumes of volcanic detritus, no such volcanic signal is seen in the detrital age pattern. Areally subordinate plutonic units are identified as the main, often unique sources. This result has important implications for studies of fossil systems, where the feeder areas are eroded, and where the youngest age population is often interpreted to indicate active volcanism. For the southernmost part of the study area in the Patagonian Andes, where the source area is mainly composed of granitoids, the sediment is derived from only small portions along the main divide, pointing to focused glacial erosion there. Our detrital AFT data show no exhumational signal that could be related to the subduction of the actively spreading Chile Ridge at c. 47°S and to the opening of a slab window beneath the South American Plate.     

Large Aperture Scintillometer Intercomparison Study

Two field studies with six large aperture scintillometers (LASs) were performed using horizontal and slant paths. The accuracy of this novel and increasingly popular technique for measuring sensible heat fluxes was quantified by comparing measurements from different instruments over nearly identical transects. Random errors in LAS measurements were small, since correlation coefficients between adjacent measurements were greater than 0.995. However, for an ideal set-up differences in linear regression slopes of up to 21% were observed with typical inter-instrument differences of 6%. Differences of 10% are typical in more realistic measurement scenarios over homogeneous natural vegetation and different transect heights and locations. Inaccuracies in the optics, which affect the effective aperture diameter, are the most likely explanation for the observed differences.     

Plio-Pleistocene landscape evolution in Northern Switzerland

Re-evaluation of the river history, palaeosurface levels and exhumation history in northern Switzerland for the last 10 million years reveals that distinct morphotectonic events about 4.2 and 2.8 million years ago (Ma) caused major reorganisation of river networks and morphosculpture. As a result of the earlier formation of the Swiss Jura, potential relief energy in the piggy-back North Alpine Foreland Basin (NAFB) of northern central Switzerland south of the Jura fold belt was built up after 11–10 Ma. It was suddenly released by river capture at about 4.2 Ma when the Aare-Danube was captured by a tributary of the Rhône-Doubs river system which rooted southeast of the Black forest. This event triggered rapid denudation of weakly consolidated Molasse sediments, in the order of about 1 km, as constrained by apatite fission track data from drillholes in the NAFB. Likely mechanisms of river capture are (a) headward erosion of Rhône-Doubs tributaries, (b) uplift and rapidly increasing erosion of the Swiss Alps after about 5.3 Ma, and (c) gravel aggradation at the eastern termination of the Jura fold belt in the course of eastward and northward tilt of the piggy-back NAFB. A morphotectonic event between 4.2 and 2.5 Ma, probably at about 2.8 Ma, caused a phase of planation, accompanied by local gravel aggradation and temporary storage of Alpine debris. Between 2.8 and 2.5 Ma, the Aare-Rhône river system is cannibalised by the modern Rhine River, the latter later connecting with the Alpine Rhine River.     

Serpentinites of the Zermatt-Saas ophiolite complex and their texture evolution

The Zermatt‐Saas serpentinite complex is an integral member of the Penninic ophiolites of the Central Alps and represents the mantle part of the oceanic lithosphere of the Tethys. Metamorphic textures of the serpentinite preserve the complex mineralogical evolution from primary abyssal peridotite through ocean‐floor hydration, subduction‐related high‐pressure overprint, meso‐Alpine greenschist facies metamorphism, and late‐stage hydrothermal alteration. The early ocean floor hydration of the spinel harzburgites is still visible in relic pseudomorphic bastite and locally preserved mesh textures. The primary serpentine minerals were completely replaced by antigorite. The stable assemblage in subduction‐related mylonitic serpentinites is antigorite–olivine–magnetite ± diopside. The mid‐Tertiary greenschist facies overprint is characterized by minor antigorite recrystallization. Textural and mineral composition data of this study prove that the hydrated mineral assemblages remained stable during high‐pressure metamorphism of up to 2.5 GPa and 650 °C. The Zermatt‐Saas serpentinites thus provide a well documented example for the lack of dehydration of a mantle fragment during subduction to 75 km depth.     

伊利石结晶度及其在低温变质研究中若干问题的讨论

文中介绍与伊利石结晶度相关的伊利石矿物新的定名方案;讨论了伊利石结晶度的结晶学基础与Scherrer方程式的关系;讨论了三个重要的伊利石结晶度指数Weaver、K櫣bler和Weber指数的关系,并介绍推导的Weaver、K櫣bler和Weber指数的理论关系式;评价了衍射仪测量条件对结晶度数值的影响和三套伊利石结晶度标样的作用以及成岩带、变质带与葡萄石-绿纤石相、沸石相、绿纤石-阳起石亚相对比的依据。建议(1)停用绢云母一词;(2)建立可供各实验室使用的具有晶体结构和晶体化学参数和多型参数的伊利石结晶度标样;(3)建议多开展规范的可进行国际对比的低温变质研究,划分出与国际上一致的成岩带和近变质带,不仅利于低温变质作用理论的研究,而且由于成岩带到近变质转变带是重要的煤气油的生成带,也利于中国煤气油资源的勘探与开发,利于国民经济的长远持续发展。     

A New Multi-Mineral Age Reference Material for 40Ar/39Ar, (U-Th)/He and Fission Track Dating Methods: The Limberg t3 Tuff

The phonolitic Limberg t3 tephra (Kaiserstuhl Volcanic Complex, Germany) was previously dated by the conventional K/Ar method yielding inconsistent results. We have re-dated this tephra layer with three independent methods. Fission Track (FT) external detector analyses on single apatite crystals (16.8 ± 1.3 Ma, 2s) and (U-Th)/He measurements on titanite and apatite (16.5 ± 1.0 Ma, 2s and 16.8 ± 1.0 Ma, 2s, respectively) are in close agreement with laser Ar/Ar dates on incrementally heated single crystals of sanidine (16.3 ± 0.4 Ma, 2s). Due to very rapid cooling, the He, FT and Ar thermochronometers provide one single age representing the eruption event. The different minerals are characterised by favourable properties with respect to their chemical composition, grain size and shape. In particular for the t3 sanidine, homogeneity has been demonstrated by electron microprobe analysis and on a grain-to-grain and grain-internal scale by single crystal incremental laser heating. Based on the agreement between independent methods and the mineral yield of this unit, the Limberg t3 tephra is proposed as multi-method age reference material for single grain laser Ar/Ar, FT and (U-Th)/He dating.     

美国内华达Goldstrike矿区卡林型贝茨金矿同变形的富矿分带

贝茨金矿是卡林金矿带在的卡林型矿床,由多个高品位富矿体组成。金矿体产于不纯的碳酸盐岩角砾岩和侵入体中,明显受构造控制,矿体显示出同变形热液沉淀特征。在ＮＷＷ向的ＤＤＺ剪切褶皱构造带中,贝茨金矿的富矿构成空间上的分带形式,主要的富矿类型有含金红石的硅质富矿,伊利石－粘土－黄放富矿,含雄黄、雌黄的富矿,含辉锑矿的硅质富矿和多金属富矿。研究表明,成矿溶液为弱－中等盐度,在构造活动期上升并冷却。变形时水－     

Interpolation of Horizontal Transmissivity Anisotropy from Head and Flowpath Observations

Rocks are rarely equally permeable in all directions. Ground water does not flow directly downgradient through anisotropic aquifers, but deviates at an angle determined by the direction and magnitude of the major and minor transmissivities. We show a mathematical model whereby the orientation and ratio of major to minor transmissivities can be estimated by an analysis of the deviation of ground-water flow from the hydraulic gradient. The solution is derived from the construction of transmissivity ellipse where the hydraulic gradient and flow direction are known. An example is given using an ethylene dibromide contaminant plume at Nemo, South Dakota, where the plume has been deflected because of bedrock foliation.