Late Carboniferous porphyry copper mineralization at La Voluntad,Neuquén,Argentina: Constraints from Re–Os molybdenite dating

The La Voluntad porphyry Cu–Mo deposit in Neuquén, Argentina, is one of several poorly known porphyry-type deposits of Paleozoic to Early Jurassic age in the central and southern Andes. Mineralization at La Voluntad is related to a tonalite porphyry from the Chachil Plutonic Complex that intruded metasedimentary units of the Piedra Santa Complex. Five new Re–Os molybdenite ages from four samples representing three different vein types (i.e., quartz–molybdenite, quartz–sericite–molybdenite and quartz–sericite–molybdenite ± chalcopyrite–pyrite) are identical within error and were formed between ~312 to ~316 Ma. Rhenium and Os concentrations range between 34 to 183 ppm and 112 to 599 ppb, respectively. The new Re–Os ages indicate that the main mineralization event at La Voluntad, associated to sericitic alteration, was emplaced during a time span of 1.7 ± 3.2 Ma and that the deposit is Carboniferous in age, not Permian as previously thought. La Voluntad is the oldest porphyry copper deposit so far recognized in the Andes and indicates the presence of an active magmatic arc, with associated porphyry style mineralization, at the proto-Pacific margin of Gondwana during the Early Pennsylvanian.     

气相色谱仪单机测试矿物包裹体中的气相成分与精密切换系统设计

用气相色谱法测试矿物包裹体中的气相成份时,难以实现一次性多组分全分析。在采用单机双柱串联方式时,则需要精确的柱间切换,分时操作。显而易见,正确地选择切换时机是实现单机测试的关键。为此,我们设计了一个微机控制的精密切换系统,与普通的气相色谱仪连接后,可以精确地找到切换时间,并实现自动切换。该系统也适用于其它需要分时操作的场合。     

太平洋水下海山磷酸盐的成因及形成环境

笔者首次对太平洋与大洋富钴结壳密切相关的海山磷酸盐的成因及形成环境进行了比较深入的研究.研究发现,各种产出形态的磷酸盐都不同程度地交代碳酸盐等含钙物质,而呈现出交代生物结构、交代凝灰结构、交代角砾状结构及交代填间结构等各种交代结构,反映了磷酸盐的交代成因. 此外,其δ13C值(变化于0.7‰~2.0‰之间)也证实其属于交代成因.磷酸盐中Na、Mg、Sr、F、P2O5含量以及Na/P2O5、Mg/P2O5、Sr/P2O5、F/P2O5的比值,特别是晶格中结构CO2的含量(变化于5.7%~6.2%之间),与形成于氧化环境下的Blake plateau、Chatham Rise、Agulhas Bank等处的磷酸盐相近,表明调查区磷酸盐亦形成于氧化环境.氧同位素测定结果表明,磷酸盐的形成温度为5.8~14.8 ℃,平均为11.5 ℃,显示其形成于正常的海水温度环境.西、中太平洋海山磷酸盐形成环境十分接近的事实暗示,西、中太平洋广大区域内的成磷事件存在着时间上和成因上的统一性和相似性.     

滇西北地区富碱岩体(脉)地质学及岩石化学特征

喜山期富碱岩体广布于滇西北地区 ,通过对其地质学和岩石化学特征的研究 ,认为富碱岩体 (脉 )由正长 (斑 )岩、二长斑岩、花岗斑岩及相关的火山岩组成 ,具有多次活动的特征 ,并形成区内富有特色的岩浆岩系列 ;该系列岩浆岩以富碱高钾为突出特点 ,具有正常的岩浆演化趋势 ,不同岩带岩石地质学和岩石化学方面有区域性变化规律。     

Well placement optimization subject to realistic field development constraints

This work considers the well placement problem in reservoir management and field development optimization. In particular, it emphasizes embedding realistic and practical constraints into a mathematical optimization formulation. Such constraints are a prerequisite for the wider use of mathematical optimization techniques in well placement problems, since constraints are a way to incorporate reservoir engineering knowledge into the problem formulation. There are important design limitations that are used by the field development team when treating the well placement problem, and these limitations need to be articulated and eventually formalized within the problem before conducting the search for optimal well placements. In addition, these design limitations may be explicit or implicit. In this work, various design limitations pertaining to well locations have been developed in close collaboration with a field operator on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Moreover, this work focuses on developing constraint-handling capability to enforce these various considerations during optimization. In particular, the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is applied to optimize for the well locations, and various practical well placement constraints are incorporated into the PSO algorithm using two different constraint-handling techniques: a decoder procedure and the penalty method. The decoder procedure maps the feasible search space onto a cube and has the advantage of not requiring parameter tuning. The penalty method converts the constrained optimization problem into an unconstrained one by introducing an additional term, which is called a penalty function, to the objective function. In contrast to the penalty method, only feasible solutions are evaluated in the decoder method. Through numerical simulations, a comparison between the penalty method and the decoder technique is performed for two cases. We show that the decoder technique can easily be implemented for the well placement problem, and furthermore, that it performs better than the penalty method in most of the cases.     

Comparison of two drought indices in studying regional meteorological drought events in China

The composite-drought index (CI), improved weighted average of precipitation index (IWAP), and the objective identification technique for regional extreme events (OITREE) were employed to detect China's regional meteorological drought events (CRMDEs) during 1961–2010. Compared with existing references, CI and IWAP both showed strong ability in identifying CRMDEs. Generally, the results of CI and IWAP were consistent, especially for extreme and severe CRMDEs. During 1961–2010, although the frequencies of extreme and severe CRMDEs based on CI and IWAP both showed weak decreasing trends, the two mean-integrated indices both showed increasing but not significant trends. However, the results of IWAP were more reasonable than CI’s in two aspects. Firstly, the monthly frequency of extreme and severe CRMDEs based on IWAP showed a clear seasonal variation, which coincided with the seasonal variation of the East Asian monsoon over central–eastern China, whereas the frequency based on CI presented a much weaker seasonal variation. Secondly, the two sets of results were sometimes inconsistent with respect to the start and end times of a CRMDE, and CRMDEs based on CI generally showed two unreasonable phenomena: (1) under non-drought conditions, a severe drought stage could suddenly occur in a large area; and (2) during the following period, drought could alleviate gradually in cases of non-precipitation. Comparative analysis suggested that the IWAP drought index possesses obvious advantages in detecting and monitoring regional drought events.     

Geological Characteristics and Stability Evaluation of Wanjia Middle School Slope in Wenchuan Earthquake Area

To investigate the formation mechanism and the stability of Wanjia middle school slope in Wenchuan Earthquake Area, the macroscopic geological characteristics and the failure process of the landslide are researched by engineering geology analysis method, limit equilibrium method, and finit element method. The results show that after the Wenchuan Earthquake, retaining walls, houses and other infrastructure on the foot of Wanjia middle school slope were severely destroyed, 10 cm wide tension fracture appeared at the trailing edge of the slope. Wanjia middle school slope is a type of medium-sized soil landslide. The area of the deformation body is about 19,314 m², the total volume of the deformation body is about 23 × 10⁴ m³. There may be two potential sliding surfaces in the unstable slope: shallow and deep landslide. The analysis results of the limit equilibrium method and the finite element method show that: under dead weight, dead weight + rainstorm, dead weight + earthquake conditions, the plastic zone occurs mainly at the middle part or the trailing edge of the slope, and it doesn’t fully cut through the deep landslide body, so the deep landslide is stable. However, under rainstorm or earthquake conditions, the plastic zone almost completely cut thorough the shallow landslide body, it shows that the shallow landslide is in the understable–basic stable state. It is found that the results of finite element method is concordant with the results of the limit equilibrium method (F _s = 1.06–1.29, the shallow landslide is in the basic stable–stable state). The calculation results show that shallow landslides are likely to occur in Wanjia middle school slope during a rainstorm or an earthquake, so monitoring and control of the slope should be strengthened. The shallow landslide should be managed by some measures, such as anti slide pile retaining structures and drainage works, and the dangerous rock bodies on the slope surface should be cleaned up.     

Recurrent mesoproterozoic continental magmatism in South-Central Norway

We report U–Pb dates and Lu–Hf isotope data, obtained by LAM-ICPMS, for zircons from metamorphic rocks of the Setesdalen valley, situated in the Telemark block south of the classic Telemark region of southern Norway. The samples include infracrustal rocks from the metamorphic basement, metaigneous rocks and metasediments from the Byglandsfjorden supracrustal cover sequence, and metaigneous rocks which intruded the whole succession. The main crustal evolution took place from 1,550–1,020 Ma, beginning with the emplacement of juvenile tonalitic melts; the contribution of older crustal material increased with time. Around 1,320 Ma, further addition of juvenile material occurred, involving both mafic and felsic melts, metamorphism and deformation. Acid magmas with high FeO*/MgO were intruded at 1,215 Ma, coinciding with underplating elsewhere in South Norway. The period starting at 1,215 Ma is represented by supracrustal rocks, principally metarhyolites with minor mafic material and immature sediments of the Byglandsfjorden Group. The crust generation processes ended with the intrusion of diorites and granodiorites at 1,030 Ma, late in the Sveconorwegian orogeny. Regional processes of metamorphism and deformation (around 1,290 and 1,000 Ma) can be related to the assembly of Rodinia. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Broad search for unstable resonant orbits in the planar circular restricted three-body problem

Unstable resonant orbits in the circular restricted three-body problem have increasingly been used for trajectory design using optimization and invariant manifold techniques. In this study, several methods for computing these unstable resonant orbits are explored including grid searches, flyby maps, and continuation. Families of orbits are computed focusing on orbits with multiple loops near the secondary in the Jupiter–Europa system, and their characteristics are explored. Different parameters such as period and stability are examined for each set of resonant orbits, and the continuation of several specific orbits is explored in more detail.     

On the physical model of earthquake precursor fields and the mechanism of precursors′ time-space distribution (II) — How do the stress and strain fields evolve while a strong earthquake is in preparation and how does the evolution affect the seismicity and earthquake precursors?

In this paper, the stress concentration process and the time-space distribution of stress when earthquakes are in preparation in one or more earthquake-generating bodies in a tectonic block have been analyzed and their relation with seismicity and earthquake precursors have been studied. The results show that: 1 When the regional stress field has intensified to a certain level, fracture begins in some block or blocks. The regional stress field will vary with time and the occurrence of strong earthquakes in groups is the result of the evolution of this dynamic stress field. In this process, the existence and development of more than one high stress concentration zone may give rise to a variety of pre-seismic anomaly-to-earthquake relations. 2 The process of stress variation in an earthquake-generating block generally appears as a nonlinear one. After the long-term elastic deformation, there may be more than one time of inelastic deformation and fault-softening from the beginning of the stage of inelastic deformation to just before the main fracture. Corresponding to such a nonlinearity, the stress and strain fields in the earthquake-generating block will display a complex pattern of time-space evolution; and thus the earthquake precursor fields controlled by stress and strain must display complexities in many aspects.