A Discussion of IGS Solutions and Their Impact on Geodetic and Geophysical Applications

The International Association of Geodesy officially established the International GPS Service (IGS) on Janaury 1, 1994. Its prime objective is to provide support and a rerefence system for a wide variety of scientific and practical applications involving GPS. To fulfill its role the IGS also generates, in addition to its fundamental products (orbital/staion positions and consistent Earth orientation parameters), additional reference-system products providing the necessary infrastructure, standards, and means of calibrations for timing and various atmospheric applications of GPS. The generation and efficient application of IGS products and their impact on a number of positioning and atmospheric applications, including low earth orbit satellites, is reviewed and discussed. @ 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

U-Series Chronology of Lacustrine Deposits in Death Valley, California

Uranium-series dating on a 186-m core (DV93-1) drilled from Badwater Basin in Death Valley, California, and on calcareous tufas from nearby strandlines shows that Lake Manly, the lake that periodically flooded Death Valley during the late Pleistocene, experienced large fluctuations in depth and chemistry over the last 200,000 yr. Death Valley has been occupied by a long-standing deep lake, perennial shallow saline lakes, and a desiccated salt pan similar to the modern valley floor. The average sedimentation rate of about 1 mm/yr for core DV93-1 was punctuated by episodes of more-rapid accumulation of halite. Arid conditions similar to the modern conditions prevailed during the entire Holocene and between 120,000 and 60,000 yr B.P. From 35,000 yr B.P. to the beginning of the Holocene, a perennial saline lake existed, over 70 m at its deepest. A much deeper and longer lasting perennial Lake Manly existed from about 185,000 to 128,000 yr B.P., with water depths reaching about 175 m, if not 330 m. This lake had two significant “dry” excursions of 10²–10³yr duration about 166,000 and 146,000 yr B.P., and it began to shrink to the point of halite precipitation between 128,000 and 120,000 yr B.P. The two perennial lake periods correspond to marine oxygen isotopic stages (OIS) 2 and 6. Based on the shoreline tufa ages, we do not rule out the possible existence 200,000 yr ago of yet a third perennial lake comparable in size to the OIS 6 lake. The²³⁴U/²³⁸U data suggest that U in tufa owes its origin mainly to Ca-rich springs fed by groundwater that emanated along lake shorelines in southern Death Valley, and that an increase of this spring-water input relative to the river-water input apparently occurred during OIS 6.     

Amphibole zonation in metabasites as a guide to the evolution of metamorphic conditions

In low grade metabasites the amphibole components tremolite, glaucophane, edenite and tschermakite have their activities controlled by interactions with the excess components albite, clinozoisite, chlorite, quartz and H₂O vapor. Three types of reaction are involved, (i) Those in which only components of condensed phases take part: isopleths of equilibrium constant are straight lines in the P-T plane. (ii) Dehydration reactions in which entropy change due to change in Al coordination is of the same sign as that due to dehydration: isopleths of constant K are positive at low pressure and negative at high pressure. (iii) Dehydration reactions in which entropy change due to Al coordination change is opposite in sign to that of dehydration: isopleths of constant K loop in the P-T plane with positive slopes at low and at high pressure. Zonation in naturally occurring amphiboles records the evolution of metamorphic conditions in particular rocks. In an example from the eastern Alps (Austria) early conditions calculated as 15 kb, 200 ° C evolve upgrade to 6 kb, 525 ° C implying concurrent heating and erosion. The record of evolving conditions may span some 30 Ma of geological history.     

Archimedes and the Tauern eclogites: the role of buoyancy in the preservation of exotic eclogite blocks

The eclogite fragments of the Tauern Window formed at pressures around 20 kbar and temperatures in the region 600–650°C; these pressures are higher by 10–12 kbar than those experienced by the units now surrounding the eclogite-bearing zone. The eclogites probably formed in a subduction zone prior to the main Austroalpine collision: downward shearing forces dominated over buoyancy forces in the subduction zone mélange, permitting the subduction of relatively light material to great depth. At the cessation of subduction this buoyant material returned to the surface, carrying eclogite blocks that were too small to sink rapidly through it. A similar mechanism could account for the emplacement of certain Alpine-type garnet peridotites.     

Intercomparison of Tropospheric OH Measurements by Different Laser Techniques during the POPCORN Campaign 1994

In-situ OH measurements by laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) spectroscopy and folded long-path differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) were carried out in a rural environment in North-East Germany as part of the field experiment POPCORN in August 1994. The large set of OH data obtained allowed an intercomparison of both techniques based on relative diurnal profiles and simultaneously measured absolute concentrations. Most of the time the two OH instruments encountered the same air and agreed well in the measured relative diurnal variations. Only on a few occasions the measurements significantly disagreed due to a perturbation of the DOAS measurements by a local OH source in the north-western wind sector. Excluding data from this wind direction, the statistical analysis of 137 data pairs yields a correlation coefficient of r = 0.90 and a weighted linear fit with a slope of 1.09 ± 0.12. The correlations are carefully analyzed. The comparison of both instruments is discussed in the light of newly published effective absorption cross-sections for H2O and O2 that affect the calibration of LIF.     

Petrology and geochemistry of Easter Island

Easter Island has developed around three volcanoes—Poike, an older (3 m.y.) strato-volcano, Rano Kau, a caldera, and the fissure complex of Terevaka and its associated cones. The lavas show a wide compositional spread from tholeiites and olivine tholeiites to hawaiites, mugearites, benmoreites, trachytes and rhyolites (comendites). Hawaiite is by far the most abundant rock type and trachytes and rhyolites are relatively rare. Intermediate and acid rocks are concentrated in the southwestern part of the island on or around Rano Kau.The basaltic rocks, which are plagioclase-phyric or aphyric, are transitional hypersthenenormative types characterized by high contents of Fe, Ti and Zr but low K and Mg. The Poike basalts are marginally lower in Zr, Nb, Y and Zn compared with those of the younger volcanoes, but the trachytes from this centre show anomalously high concentrations of Rb, Zr and Nb.The island's youngest flow, the Roiho basalt, is an olivine tholeiite with distinctly more alkaline affinities: it is olivine-microphyric with relatively high contents of Mg, Ni and K.The study was initiated whilst this author was at Department of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Oxford.     

Pleistocene climatic change in Southern Australia and its effect on speleothem deposition in some Nullarbor caves

Activity ratios of ²³⁴U/²³⁸U, ²³⁰Th/²³⁴U, and ²³⁰Th/²³²Th have been determined for calcite, gypsum and halite speleothems from caves of the Nullarbor Plain, mostly in the area N and NW of Mundrabilla Station, for the purpose of U-series dating. All calcite speleothems contain adequate amounts of uranium for dating, but some show an excess of ²³⁰Th. Stratigraphic relationships indicate that there were at least three phases of calcium carbonate deposition in the Nullarbor caves. The calcite samples, with one possible exception, have ages in excess of ca. 400000 yrs BP. This suggests that no significant amounts of calcium carbonate deposition have taken place during the last 400ka. At present, active deposition of speleothems is restricted almost entirely to gypsum and halite. The only gypsum speleothem dated was found to have a finite age of ca. 185 ka. Six dates on a small halite speleothem containing insect and arachnid remains indicate that it formed rapidly during Holocene time.     

Catastrophic landslides,glacier behaviour and moraine formation – A view from an active plate margin

The influence of large bedrock landslides (“rock avalanches”) on the behaviour of glaciers is incompletely recognised. Here we present an example from an active tectonic margin in South Island, New Zealand where large earthquakes leave a significant imprint on glacial records. We demonstrate that terminal moraines on the western side of the Southern Alps record both ‘ordinary’ (i.e. climate-driven) and landslide-initiated glacial advances. Following consideration of the processes involved in rock avalanche-initiated moraine construction we suggest ways of determining the nature of the advance that built the terminal moraine. The implications of these observations are important in breaking the conventional linkage of individual terminal moraines with climate forcing.