Late Pleistocene morainal bank facies at Greystones, eastern Ireland: an example of sedimentation during ice marginal re-equilibration in an isostatically depressed basin

A late Pleistocene morainal bank is sited in a depocentre to the lee of a major rock ridge, near Greystones, in the western Irish Sea Basin. During deglaciation the ridge provided a pinning point during tidewater wastage northwards. Sedimentation patterns and palaeocurrent data show morainal bank growth by discharge from a single basal efflux located to the east or south-east of the ridge during ice marginal re-equilibration. The four lithofacies associations which are recognized from the western part of the formerly more extensive apron are related largely to variable jet and plume sedimentation. At the base of the 1.6 km long exposure, Lithofacies association 1 (massive mud, muddy diamict and laminated mud) was deposited from turbid plumes, variable ice rafting and traction current activity. Lenticular units of gravels within this mud bank record high energy pulses and sediment fluxes from the efflux jet. Lithofacies association 2 (sands, laminated muds and muddy diamict) is discontinuous and occurs within basins along a marked erosion surface cut in Lithofacies association 1. It is associated with a decrease in jet strength, traction currents and suspension sedimentation. Lithofacies association 3 is a tabular body of interbedded diamicts and gravels which is present along the entire section. It documents the decay phase of re-equilibration as the ice margin disintegrated catastrophically and released large volumes of heterogeneous sediment which was resedimented by quasicontinuous mass flow. Lithofacies association 4 consists of stratified and massive gravels within distributary channels cut into underlying facies and represents the last phase of meltwater activity. Sediment geometries, particularly sedimentary contrasts representing erosion surfaces at a variety of scales and abrupt textural contrasts are attributed to jet switching. Lithofacies association 1 (60%) and Lithofacies association 3 (30%) are the dominant facies. In favourable topographic settings this stratigraphic couplet is a signature for re-equilibrated ice margins in isostatically depressed basins dominated by tidewater fronts, rapid ice flux and high relative sea level. Morainal banks document rapid environmental change and in the Irish Sea Basin they form part of a deglacial event stratigraphy related to unstable tidewater margins and high relative sea level. Deglaciation was therefore controlled primarily by high relative sea level rather than climatic forcing. Facies variations should therefore not be used for stratigraphic correlations in place of direct stratigraphy. This type of situation may be more common than hitherto realized in Late Pleistocene, mid-latitude shelves where most of the preserved stratigraphy is characterized by complex, interbedded sequences formed when isostatic depression exceeded sea-level fall.     

Matrix Diffusion Effects on Contaminant Migration from an Injection Well in Fractured Sandstone

Deep-well injection into fractured sandstone is an option for the disposal of contaminated mine dewatering discharge from an open pit uranium mine. As part of the assessment of potential contaminant migration from deep-well injection, the effect of matrix diffusion was evaluated. An analytical mathematical model was developed for the simulation of the radial movement of a contaminant front away from an injection point under steady flow conditions in a planar fracture with uniform properties. The model includes the effects of advection in the fracture, diffusion of contaminants from the fracture into the rock matrix, and equilibrium adsorption on the fracture surface as well as in the rock matrix. Effective diffusion coefficients obtained from laboratory experiments on 11 intact core samples varied from 3.4 × 10⁻⁸ to 3.2 × 10⁻⁷ cm²/s. Model simulations were made with diffusion coefficient values in this range and with single-fracture injection rates estimated from fracture frequencies in boreholes, and from bulk hydraulic conductivity values obtained from field tests. Because of matrix diffusion, the rate of outward movement of the front of the nonreactive contaminants from the injection well is much slower than the rate of water flow in the fractures. Simulations of the movement of contaminants that undergo adsorption indicate that even a small distribution coefficient for the rock matrix causes the contaminants to remain very close to the injection well during the one-year period. The results of the simplified model demonstrate that matrix diffusion is an important process that cannot be neglected in the assessment of a waste disposal scheme located in fractured porous rock. However, in order to make a definitive assessment of the capability of matrix diffusion and associated matrix adsorption to significantly limit the extent of contaminant migration around injection wells, it would be necessary to conduct field tests such as a preliminary or experimental injection.     

Depletion of a brine layer at the base of ridge-crest hydrothermal systems

The variable salinity of fluid venting from mid-ocean ridges is indicative of mixing between hydrothermal seawater and fluids that have undergone supercritical phase separation. In order to study the stability of a brine-saturated layer that may form in the lowermost part of the hydrothermal system, we have performed numerical simulations of a system that has returned into the subcritical regime. For typical geological parameters, it is shown that the interface between the brine layer and the overlying fluids is not very stable, but vanishes by one of two dynamical mechanisms: convective breakdown or vertical migration. This contradicts the conventional picture of a steady, layered convective system in which the brine is depleted only by dispersion and diffusion across the interface. The depletion mechanism depends on the fluid-dynamical stability of the brine layer. Convection within the brine layer results either in the convective breakdown (for low excess salinity of the brine, as compared to seawater) or the upward migration of the interface (for higher excess salinities). Consequently, the depletion times are much shorter than for models with pure dispersion/diffusion across the interface. If the brine layer is static, high-chlorinity liquid is entrained slowly by the convecting overlying fluids, leading to downward migration of the interface. This gradual depletion of the brine layer results in almost constant vent salinities, in agreement with measured salinities of chronic high-chlorinity vents.     

Fades of subglacial channel sedimentation in late-Pleistocene drumlins, Northern Ireland

The sedimentology of three sand-cored drumlins in central Ulster. Northern Ireland is described. The sand-cores of the drumlins consist of complex sequences of cohesive sediment gravity forms, grain-flow deposits, turbiditic sands and deltaic sands and gravels, showing complex fades relationships. The bulk of the sediments formed in water-filled cavities associated with a major subglacial meltwater escape route excavated in bedrock. The sand-cores are overlain by a streamlined carapace of basal melt-out till. A model is presented to account for spatial variations in faeies arrangement within the sand-cores. Three specific meltwater depositional subenvironments were recognised: (1) main channel axis, (2) main channel flank, and (3) minor tributary channel. The sand-cores formed prior to the main phase of basal melt-out till deposition and before drumlin streamlining.     

Simulating the diurnal cycle of rainfall in global climate models: resolution versus parameterization

The effects of horizontal resolution and the treatment of convection on simulation of the diurnal cycle of precipitation during boreal summer are analyzed in several innovative weather and climate model integrations. The simulations include: season-long integrations of the Non-hydrostatic Icosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM) with explicit clouds and convection; year-long integrations of the operational Integrated Forecast System (IFS) from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts at three resolutions (125, 39 and 16 km); seasonal simulations of the same model at 10 km resolution; and seasonal simulations of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) low-resolution climate model with and without an embedded two-dimensional cloud-resolving model in each grid box. NICAM with explicit convection simulates best the phase of the diurnal cycle, as well as many regional features such as rainfall triggered by advancing sea breezes or high topography. However, NICAM greatly overestimates mean rainfall and the magnitude of the diurnal cycle. Introduction of an embedded cloud model within the NCAR model significantly improves global statistics of the seasonal mean and diurnal cycle of rainfall, as well as many regional features. However, errors often remain larger than for the other higher-resolution models. Increasing resolution alone has little impact on the timing of daily rainfall in IFS with parameterized convection, yet the amplitude of the diurnal cycle does improve along with the representation of mean rainfall. Variations during the day in atmospheric prognostic fields appear quite similar among models, suggesting that the distinctive treatments of model physics account for the differences in representing the diurnal cycle of precipitation.     

Determination of Rare Earth Elements and Yttrium in Nine Geochemical Reference Samples Using a Novel Group Separation Procedure Involving Mixed-Acid Elution Ion-Exchange Chromatography

Rare earth data for nine well-known geochemical reference samples were obtained using a rapid and efficient cation exchange chromatographic separation procedure. It involves the use of a mixed-acid eluent (HCI and HNO3) on a 15 x 1 cm column of Bio-Rad AG50–X8 (200–400 mesh) to remove matrix and many trace elements from rock solutions. The rare earth elements are removed from the column using 60 ml 7M HNO3. The pre-concentration procedure described is routinely used in this laboratory for the determination of the rare earth elements by mass spectrometry-isotope dilution, and has been satisfactorily used for their determination using inductively-coupled plasma-source atomic emission spectrometry.     

Pressure and density gradients in H II Regions

Here we discuss the effects of large ambient pressures and decreasing density gradients on the observed properties of dusty UC hii regions. Dust absorption can effectively reduce the size of the photo ionized region, and density gradients can modify the spectral index of the emission. The effects of the density gradients seem to be present in both galactic and extragalactic HII regions.