Strontium isotope variations in lower tertiary-quaternary volcanic rocks from the Kurile island arc

Average ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios for lavas from Quaternary and Pleistocene volcanoes of the Kurile island arc, NW Pacific, decrease from 0.7035 in the south to 0.7032 in the north. The northern Kuriles are characterised by K₂Oricher volcanics and by an older crust. Varying ratios show no simple relation to crustal thickness or geochemical indicators of crustal contamination. This is thought to reflect the immature character of the crust — its simatic composition, low Rb/Sr ratios and youthfulness. Older lavas from the Kuriles (Lower Tertiary, Miocene) have similar or slightly higher ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios; some have suffered slight alteration and possibly crustal contamination. Quaternary volcanics from the Kurile and Aleutian arcs have the lowest ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios of all circum-Pacific arcs and this may be ascribed to (a) the isotopic individuality of the landward North American plate and/or (b) the high degree of mechanical coupling between the Pacific and North American plates reducing the amount of subducted ⁸⁷Sr-rich sediments and seawater. An isotopic boundary between island arcs is located in central Hokkaido. The primary basaltic magmas of the Kuriles were derived from mantle recently contaminated by radiogenic Sr. Subsequent fractionation to andesites and dacites occurred by closed-system fractional crystallization.     

The Hekla eruption 1980–1981

The sixteenth eruption of Hekla since 1104 began on August 17th, 1980, after the shortest repose period on record, only ten years. The eruption started with a plinian phase and simultaneously lava issued at high rate from a fissure that runs along the Hekla volcanic ridge. The production rate declined rapidly after the first day and the eruption stopped on August 20th. A total of 120 million m³ of lava and about 60 million m³ of airborne tephra were produced during this phase of the activity. In the following seven months steam emissions were observed on the volcano. Activity was renewed on April 9th 1981, and during the following week additional 30 million m³ of lava flowed from a summit crater and crater rows on the north slope. The lavas and tephra are of uniform intermediate chemical composition similar to that of earlier Hekla lavas. Although the repose time was short the eruptions fit well into the behaviour pattern of earlier eruptions. Distance changes in a geodimeter network established after the eruptions are interpreted as due to inflation of magma reservoirs at 7–8 kilometers depth.     

Sector zoned aegirine from the Ilímaussaq alkaline intrusion,South Greenland

Sector zoned aegirine crystals occur in the interstices of peralkaline nepheline syenites in Ilímaussaq. The crystals have grass-green [001] sectors enriched in Ca and Fe²⁺ (as CaFeSi₂O₆), Mn and Zr; pale green {010} sectors enriched in Al (as NaAlSi₂O₆); blue-green {110} sectors enriched in Ti (as NaTi_0.5Fe _0.5 ²⁺ Si₂O₆); and light green {100} sectors enriched in Fe₃₊ (as NaFe³⁺ Si₂O₆).The crystals grew in the liquid with a rate that did not exceed the diffusion rate of most elements in the liquid. However. Fe³⁺ seems to have had diffusion rates lower than the crystal growth rate, and this probably caused the development of some sectors enriched in acmite and others enriched in the hedenbergite component. For Al, Ti and Zr a crystal structural control is envisaged although a recent structure-based model for sector zoning fails to explain the efficient separation of these elements into different sectors.Three more occurrences of sector zoned aegirine are noted, all from peralkaline nepheline syenites. The phenomenon is probably more widespread than hitherto realised.Contribution to the mineralogy of Ilímaussaq no. 62     

Revising the ‘host country standard’ principle: a step for China to align its overseas investment with the Paris Agreement

ABSTRACT

China’s overseas investment flows (US$ 183 billion) and stock (US$ 4.7 trillion) reached a record peak in 2016, second only to those of the US. A major cause for concern lies in the environmental sustainability of China’s overseas investment portfolio, which is compounded by the lack of transparency of China’s main development finance arms. We intend in this paper to give an update on the magnitude of green finance in China’s overseas investment and development finance portfolio on the basis of the best available estimates, and to put these figures into a broader perspective of multilateral development banks’ commitments and practices to combat climate change. We derive practical policy recommendations that Chinese development banks could take to further align China’s overseas investment with the 2°C target of the Paris Agreement, with the first step being to revise the ‘host country standard’ principle, to ensure that Chinese development banks use the most stringent of the two environmental standards, abroad or at home.

Key policy insights

• Chinese development banks lend, give or invest between US$ 38 billion and US$ 45 billion every year to developing countries, without either elaborating on, or integrating, the provisions of the Paris Agreement into their investment strategy.

• Regulations and safeguards are much more stringent for China’s domestic investment than for China’s overseas investment, and this stringency gap has been widening over recent years.

• As a step towards aligning Chinese overseas investment with the Paris Agreement, Chinese development banks could revise the ‘host country standard principle’. They could instead choose the highest among the two – recipient country or Chinese domestic – in terms of environmental stringency, consequently harmonizing overseas environmental regulation and safeguards with those that apply domestically.

     

A 10Be‐based reconstruction of the last deglaciation in southern Sweden

We present 23 cosmogenic surface exposure ages from 10 localities in southern Sweden. The new ¹⁰Be ages allow a direct correlation between the east and west coasts of southern Sweden, based on the same dating technique, and provide new information about the deglaciation of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet in the circum‐Baltic area. In western Skåne, southernmost Sweden, a single cosmogenic surface exposure sample gave an age of 16.8±1.0 ka, whereas two samples from the central part of Skåne gave ages of 17.0±0.9 and 14.1±0.8 ka. Further northeast, in southern Småland, two localities gave ages ranging from 15.2±0.8 to 16.9±0.9 ka (n=5) indicating a somewhat earlier deglaciation of the area than has previously been suggested. Our third locality, in S Småland, gave ages ranging from 10.2±0.5 to 18.4±1.6 ka (n=3), which are probably not representative of the timing of deglaciation. In central Småland one locality was dated to 14.5±0.8 ka (n=3), whereas our northernmost locality, situated in northern Småland, was dated to 13.8±0.8 ka (n=3). Samples from the island of Gotland suggest deglaciation before 13 ka ago. We combined the new ¹⁰Be ages with previously published deglaciation ages to constrain the deglaciation chronology of southern Sweden. The combined deglaciation chronology suggests a rather steady deglaciation in southern Sweden starting at c. 17.9 cal. ka BP in NW Skåne and reaching northern Småland, ～200 km further north, c. 13.8 ka ago. Overall the new deglaciation ages agree reasonably well with existing deglaciation chronologies, but suggest a somewhat earlier deglaciation in Småland.     

Combining the modified discrete element method with the virtual element method for fracturing of porous media

Simulation of fracturing processes in porous rocks can be divided into two main branches: (i) modeling the rock as a continuum enhanced with special features to account for fractures or (ii) modeling the rock by a discrete (or discontinuous) approach that describes the material directly as a collection of separate blocks or particles, e.g., as in the discrete element method (DEM). In the modified discrete element (MDEM) method, the effective forces between virtual particles are modified so that they reproduce the discretization of a first-order finite element method (FEM) for linear elasticity. This provides an expression of the virtual forces in terms of general Hook’s macro-parameters. Previously, MDEM has been formulated through an analogy with linear elements for FEM. We show the connection between MDEM and the virtual element method (VEM), which is a generalization of FEM to polyhedral grids. Unlike standard FEM, which computes strain-states in a reference space, MDEM and VEM compute stress-states directly in real space. This connection leads us to a new derivation of the MDEM method. Moreover, it enables a direct coupling between (M)DEM and domains modeled by a grid made of polyhedral cells. Thus, this approach makes it possible to combine fine-scale (M)DEM behavior near the fracturing region with linear elasticity on complex reservoir grids in the far-field region without regridding. To demonstrate the simulation of hydraulic fracturing, the coupled (M)DEM-VEM method is implemented using the Matlab Reservoir Simulation Toolbox (MRST) and linked to an industry-standard reservoir simulator. Similar approaches have been presented previously using standard FEM, but due to the similarities in the approaches of VEM and MDEM, our work provides a more uniform approach and extends these previous works to general polyhedral grids for the non-fracturing domain.     

Aspects Of The Atmospheric Surface Layers On Mars And Earth

The structures of mean flow and turbulence in the atmospheric surface boundary layer have been extensively studied on Earth, and to a far less extent on Mars, where only the Viking missions and the Pathfinder mission have delivered in-situ data. Largely the behaviour of surface-layer turbulence and mean flow on Mars is found to obey the same scaling laws as on Earth. The largest micrometeorological differences between the two atmospheres are associated with the low air density of the Martian atmosphere. Together with the virtual absence of water vapour, it reduces the importance of the atmospheric heat flux in the surface energy budget. This increases the temperature variation of the surface forcing the near-surface temperature gradient and thereby the diabatic heat flux to higher values than are typical on the Earth, resulting in turn in a deeper daytime boundary layer. As wind speed is much like that of the Earth, this larger diabatic heat flux is carried mostly by larger maximal values of T_*, the surface scale temperature. The higher kinematic viscosity yields a Kolmogorov scale of the order of ten times larger than on Earth, influencing the transition between rough and smooth flow for the same surface features.The scaling laws have been validated analysing the Martian surface-layer data for the relations between the power spectra of wind and temperature turbulence and the corresponding mean values of wind speed and temperature. Usual spectral formulations were used based on the scaling laws ruling the Earth atmospheric surface layer, whereby the Earth's atmosphere is used as a standard for the Martian atmosphere.     

Origin of high manganese concentrations in coal mine drainage, eastern Tennessee

The origin of high dissolved manganese concentrations in slightly acidic mine runoff from a surface mine operated by the Cumberland Coal Company in eastern Tennessee was investigated. Mineralogical and chemical analyses were performed on 31 samples of sandstone, shale, coal, and mudstone from the mine to identify the sources and stratigraphic distribution of high extractable manganese contents in the spoil materials. The samples were analyzed for their bulk mineral content by X-ray diffraction, net acid-base potential, and reaction to 2 or 4 chemical extraction procedures. A limited number of samples were analyzed for petrographic characteristics, clay mineral composition by X-ray diffraction, and mineral compositions by electron microprobe. Analysis of the data and consideration of the geochemical conditions at the mine were used to identify probable sources for the high extractable manganese contents.The results indicate 2 prominent, independent sources of extractable manganese. The first source is exchangeable manganese on clay minerals (mainly illite + muscovite and chlorite) and is concentrated in shale and mudstone rock types. The second and more significant source is manganese in siderite concretions and cement, mainly in shale and mudstone. Comparison to other coal-bearing strata indicates that manganese-rich siderite is common in fresh- to brackish-water subaqueous sediments that overlie coal. This is especially the case for coals formed in wet, tropical environments.Ratios of manganese to calcium and magnesium in mine runoff suggest that manganese from siderite is the major cause of the high dissolved manganese contents. A conceptual model is developed to explain the high manganese contents of the mine runoff. Oxidation of pyrite creates mildly acidic waters that are subsequently partially neutralized by reaction with impure siderite. Solubilized manganese remains dissolved in the slightly acidic runoff water, whereas dissolved iron precipitates as ferric hydroxide or goethite. Consideration of data from other coal mining regions suggests that similar reactions involving impure siderite may be responsible for high manganese concentrations in acidic to slightly acidic mine runoff. Geochemical reaction path modeling of pyrite and impure siderite with rainwater illustrate how resulting water compositions may vary depending on pyrite to siderite ratios in spoil materials. Spoil water compositions from the Cumberland mine are largely consistent with reaction of pyrite and impure siderite in proportions observed in the sediments; however, deviations may be explained by minor mixing with waters that reacted only with impure siderite or clay mineral exchange reactions.     

Impact melt rocks from the Late Paleocene Hiawatha impact structure,northwest Greenland

Impact melt rocks formed during hypervelocity impact events are ideal for studying impact structures. Here, we describe impact melt rock samples collected proximal to the 31 km wide 58 Ma Hiawatha impact structure, northwest Greenland, which is completely covered by the Greenland Ice Sheet. The melt rocks contain diagnostic shock indicators (e.g., planar deformation features [PDF] in quartz and shocked zircon) and form three groups based on melt textures and chemistry: (i) hypocrystalline, (ii) glassy, and (iii) carbonate-based melt rocks. The exposed foreland directly in front of the structure consists of metasedimentary successions and igneous plutons; however, the carbonate-based impactites indicate a mixed target sequence with a significant carbonate-rich component. Well-preserved organic material in some melt rocks indicates that North Greenland at the time of impact was host to abundant organic material, likely a dense high-latitude temperate forest. Geochemical signatures of platinum-group elements in selected samples indicate an extraterrestrial component and support previous identification of a highly fractionated iron impactor in glaciofluvial sand. Our results illustrate the possibility to study impact structures hidden beneath a thick ice sheet based on transported samples and this opens a new avenue for identifying other potential impact craters in Greenland and Antarctica.