A modern oceanic hardground on the Carnegie Ridge in the eastern Equatorial Pacific

Fossil surfaces of erosion and non-deposition are common in limestone sequences from the Mesozoic in western Europe and in the Tethys and have been described under the name ‘hardgrounds’. They are of shallow water as well as of oceanic origin. A modern example in the Pacific is described in this paper. The Carnegie Ridge, an east-west trending shallow ridge between South America and the Galapagos Islands, has a central, deeper saddle where erosion has removed most of the sediment cover down to a hard chalk and chert bed (acoustic basement), and has cut intricate channel patterns on the south flank and two deep canyons on the north. The erosion has produced a karst-like relief of steep-walled channels, cliffs, and corroded chalk remnants. The floors of the channels are covered with ferromanganese oxide crusts or crust fragments over which loose sediment is being transported. In the two canyons on the north flank, this sediment consists of foraminiferal sand travelling downslope in the form of barchan dunes. All sediment down to acoustic basement has been stripped from the Carnegie Ridge crest except where it is protected behind basement ridges and pinnacles. Surface features of the eroded chalk are strongly reminiscent of features observed in Mesozoic hardgrounds. Current measurements over several days indicate a net northward movement, slow but possibly adequate to keep the sea floor free of fresh deposits. The rates, however, seem inadequate to explain the formation of the deep channels, and there is no evidence for the southward flow which is implied by the southern channel system. A process of combined carbonate dissolution and removal by the current of fresh sediment and dissolution residues can account for the required erosion in about two million years. Regional unconformities identifiable in seismic reflection profiles and dated in cores are of middle to late Pliocene age, suggesting that the formation of the erosion surface began 2-3 million years ago. Buried Miocene unconformities of local extent show that the present erosion period had minor precursors possibly related to short-lived increases in current action and carbonate dissolution.     

SEISMIC INVERSION BY A RMS BORN APPROXIMATION IN THE SPACE-TIME DOMAIN1

A new approximate method to calculate the space-time acoustic wave motion generated by an impulsive point source in a horizontally layered configuration is presented. The configuration consists of a stack of fluid layers between two acoustic half-spaces where the source and the receiver are located in the upper half-space. A distorted-wave Born approximation is introduced; the important feature of the method is the assumption of a background medium with vertical varying root-mean-square acoustic wave speed. A closed-form expression for the scattered field in space and time as a function of the contrast parameters is deduced. The result agrees closely with rigorously calculated synthetic seismograms. In the inverse scheme the wave speed and mass density can be reconstructed within a single trace. Results of the inversion scheme applied to synthetic data are shown.     

中国固体潮观测研究

本文讨论了在中国北京、武汉、上海、昆明、兰州、乌鲁木齐、广州、沈阳和青岛等九处的固体潮观测结果,并且与具有海洋和液核的地球模型进行了比较。文中特别讨论了仪器标定问题。结果表明了模拟固体潮效应的精度达到了0.6μgal。     

Neogene Paleoseismic Events and the Shanwang Biota’s Burial in the Linqu Area, Shandong Province, China

Several paleoseismic events are recorded in the Neogene Linqu Group, exposed in the Linqu area, Shandong Province, China. The events were interpreted on the basis of fieldwork and laboratory analysis, which showed the presence of seismites with plastically deformed soft-sediment deformation structures in the Shanwang Formation, and of seismic volcanic rocks in the Yaoshan Formation which show brittle deformation. The earthquake-triggered soft-sediment deformations in the seismites include load structures, ball-and-pillow structures, flame structures, pillow-like beds, boudinage structures, slump folds, syn-depositional faults, veins of liquefied sand, and dikes of liquefied sandy lime-mud. The seismic activity is also reflected in what might be called ‘brittle seismites'; these originated when, under the influence of seismic vibrations, semi-consolidated conglomerate was shattered. Moreover, volcanic activity is related to intense earthquakes that affected basalts intercalated with sand layers; these successions are known as ‘seismic volcanic rocks', which are characterized by veins of liquefied sand intruding the basalts. All above traces of paleoseismic activity were left from one single time span of 4 Ma with active seismicity that took place 14–10 Ma. This time span is known as ‘the Linqu Neogene Paleoseismic Active Period', which is divided into four paleoseismic episodes, which were responses to tectonic extension and basin rifting in this area. It even includes the activity of the Yishu Fault Zone during the Miocene and the Neogene. The ratios of trace elements in the seismites, w(La)/w(Sc) and w(La)/w(Th) are higher than the average value of the upper crust, but w(Th)/w(Sc) is lower; this is geochemical evidence for the basin rifting that resulted in a high sedimentation rate. The intense and frequent paleo-earthquakes are held responsible for the rapid burial of the Shanwang Biota. Secondary earthquake-induced processes(e.g. slumping of a lake shore and the strongly increased lacustrine sedimentation rate) contributed to the rapid burial of the biota.     

河口海岸中长时间尺度动力地貌系统模拟研究与进展

我国河口海岸动力沉积和动力地貌研究以沉积学和地貌学的方法侧重静态描述,动力地貌相互作用的定量研究不多,与缺少动力地貌模型技术有关。本文介绍了中长时间尺度的河口海岸动力地貌模型技术及其发展和应用,讨论了决定动力地貌演变的泥沙余输运及引起泥沙余输运的主要动力因子,介绍了动力地貌模型的应用进展,进而分析了河口海岸地貌过程的机制和地貌平衡系统。本文指出对淤泥质及复杂动力条件下的河口海岸动力地貌过程还有待进一步研究。     

A MONTHLY WATER BALANCE MODEL INCLUDING DEEP INFILTRATION AND CANAL LOSSES / Un modèle mensuel du bilan hydrologique inclusive l'infiltration profonde et les pertes des canaux

Abstract

A monthly water balance model is being successfully applied to the Grote Nete test basin (553 km²) in the North of Belgium. This low region has a complex geological structure, its boundaries are more or less unknown and deep infiltration into a deep aquifer is most likely to occur. Moreover, the area is crossed by several navigation canals which import and export an unknown volume of water.

The inputs are monthly precipitation and Penman potential evapotranspiration values. The model computes actual evapotranspiration, water storage in the basin, direct runoff and infiltration, baseflow and total stream discharge, deep infiltration loss into the underlying aquifer and constant seepage from the canals. The ‘pattern search’ procedure has been used for automatic optimization of the six model parameters. All parameters have a physical meaning and can be evaluated initially.

For the calibration period 1967–1972, total stream discharge has been calculated with a precision of 0.2 per cent compared to total measured volume. The correlation coefficient is 92 per cent for the same calibration period. Prediction for the period 1973–1974 gave a volume precision of 8.7 per cent and a correlation coefficient of 93 per cent.     

Relict Majoritic Garnet Microstructures from Ultra-Deep Orogenic Peridotites in Western Norway

Protogranular, porphyroclastic and equigranular (or equant-polygonal)garnet microstructures from Mg–Cr type orogenic garnetperidotites, Otrøy, Western Gneiss Region, Norway, havebeen studied using naked eye, light-optical, electron-opticaland confocal laser (fluorescence) microscopy techniques. Protogranularand porphyroclastic garnets contain microstructural evidencefor the former existence of majoritic (or super-silicic) garnet.The microstructural evidence consists of exsolution texturesinvolving pyroxene. Two types of exsolution microstructuresoccur—needles parallel to <111>_grt and interstitialgrains. The maximum volume percentage for intra-crystallinepyroxene exsolution is 2·7, and 3·6 for inter-crystallinepyroxene exsolution. The maximum pyroxene total volume percentagemeasured in one single protogranular or porphyroclastic garnetis 4·0. This value, at 1200°C, corresponds to minimumpressures of 6·4 GPa (