敦煌造山带长山子地区变质演化及年代学研究

长山子地区位于敦煌造山带东北部,瓜州南部约100km处。该区主要出露一套中-高级变质表壳岩,主要岩石类型有长英质片麻岩、变泥质麻粒岩、高压基性麻粒岩、斜长角闪片麻岩。高压基性麻粒岩岩块、斜长角闪片麻岩岩块以构造透镜体或布丁(长度为0. 5~15m)的形式,被夹持于长英质片麻岩、变泥质麻粒岩组成的基质之中,呈现典型"基质夹岩块"的混杂带特征。高压基性麻粒岩、斜长角闪片麻岩、泥质麻粒岩中,普遍保留了二至三个阶段的变质矿物组合。进变质阶段矿物组合(M1)为石榴子石变斑晶中的细小矿物包裹体,变质高峰期矿物组合(M2)为石榴子石变斑晶和基质矿物,退变质阶段矿物组合(M3)主要为围绕石榴子石变斑晶边部发育的"白眼圈"状后成合晶。本区各类变质岩石均记录了顺时针型变质作用P-T轨迹,系典型俯冲-碰撞造山带变质作用特征。退变质阶段P-T轨迹属于西阿尔卑斯型,说明变质岩折返速率较快。变质高峰期(M2)属于中压变质相系,P-T条件分别为790~870℃/1.29~1.37GPa(高压基性麻粒岩)、680~685℃/0.89~0.97GPa(斜长角闪片麻岩)、860~880℃/0.90~1.14GPa(变泥质麻粒岩),它们之间存在大的差异。这说明,它们是形成于同一俯冲隧道内不同深度的变质岩石,在构造折返阶段才混杂在一起形成构造混杂岩。二次离子质谱(SIMS)锆石U-Pb定年表明,长山子地区变质杂岩记录了早泥盆世的俯冲事件(419~417Ma)。     

Carbon costs and benefits of France’s biomass energy production targets

Background

Concern about climate change has motivated France to reduce its reliance on fossil fuel by setting targets for increased biomass-based renewable energy production. This study quantifies the carbon costs and benefits for the French forestry sector in meeting these targets. A forest growth and harvest simulator was developed for French forests using recent forest inventory data, and the wood-use chain was reconstructed from national wood product statistics. We then projected wood production, bioenergy production, and carbon balance for three realistic intensification scenarios and a business-as-usual scenario. These intensification scenarios targeted either overstocked, harvest-delayed or currently actively managed stands.

Results

All three intensification strategies produced 11.6–12.4 million tonnes of oil equivalent per year of wood-based energy by 2026, which corresponds to the target assigned to French wood-energy to meet the EU 2020 renewable energy target. Sustaining this level past 2026 will be challenging, let alone further increasing it. Although energy production targets can be reached, the management intensification required will degrade the near-term carbon balance of the forestry sector, compared to continuing present-day management. Even for the best-performing intensification strategy, i.e., reducing the harvest diameter of actively managed stands, the carbon benefits would only become apparent after 2040. The carbon balance of a strategy putting abandoned forests back into production would only break even by 2055; the carbon balance from increasing thinning in managed but untended stands would not break even within the studied time periods, i.e. 2015–2045 and 2046–2100. Owing to the temporal dynamics in the components of the carbon balance, i.e., the biomass stock in the forest, the carbon stock in wood products, and substitution benefits, the merit order of the examined strategies varies over time.

Conclusions

No single solution was found to improve the carbon balance of the forestry sector by 2040 in a way that also met energy targets. We therefore searched for the intensification scenario that produces energy at the lowest carbon cost. Reducing rotation time of actively managed stands is slightly more efficient than targeting harvest-delayed stands, but in both cases, each unit of energy produced has a carbon cost that only turns into a benefit between 2060 and 2080.

     

The past in dust: current trends and future directions in Pleistocene geoarcheology of European loess

Loess is a main archive of Pleistocene landscapes and environments and therefore has an important connection to the preservation and interpretation of Paleolithic sites. In Europe, anthropogenic sites have been found in loess because of past local occupation. At one extreme, sites are well preserved with minimal disturbance often accompanied by embedded proxies to estimate ecological parameters. On the other hand, loess deposits have undergone post-depositional alterations such as weathering, pedogenesis or bioturbation due to changing environmental conditions or other disturbances that obscure anthropogenic sites. We outline the current state of research and connections between Paleolithic archeology and loess research while introducing a series of subsequent regional case studies as part of a special issue. We also make recommendations for future work to incorporate a wider variety of methods to create more robust inferences on hominin and environmental evolution and their connections.     

Flood-prone area mapping using machine learning techniques: a case study of Quang Binh province,Vietnam

Natural Hazards - Vietnam’s central coastal region is the most vulnerable and always at flood risk, severely affecting people’s livelihoods and socio-economic development. In...     

Homogeneity and mechanical behaviors of sands improved by a temperature-controlled one-phase MICP method

Acta Geotechnica - Microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) has been actively investigated as a promising method to improve soil properties. A burning issue impeding its wide application...     

Estimation of peak relative velocity and peak absolute acceleration of linear SDOF systems

In the seismic analysis and design of structures, the true velocity and absolute acceleration are usually approximated by their corresponding pseudo-values. This approach is simple and works well for structures with small damping (say, less than 15%). When the damping of a structure is enhanced for the purpose of response reduction, it may result in large analysis and design errors. Based on theory of random vibration and the established mechanism of seismic response spectra analysis, a method is developed (1) to predict the relative velocity spectra with any damping ratio level directly from the 5% standard pseudo-acceleration spectrum; and (2) to estimate the peak absolute acceleration. The accuracy of both is validated by using two selected ensembles of ground motion records.     

Geological and geophysical studies of the Agoudal impact structure (Central High Atlas,Morocco): New evidence for crater size and age

Since the discovery of shatter cones (SCs) near the village of Agoudal (Morocco, Central High Atlas Mountains) in 2013, the absence of one or several associated circular structures led to speculation about the age of the impact event, the number, and the size of the impact crater or craters. Additional constraints on the crater size, age, and erosion rates are obtained here from geological, structural, and geophysical mapping and from cosmogenic nuclide data. Our geological maps of the Agoudal impact site at the scales of 1:30,000 (6 km²) and 1:15,000 (2.25 km²) include all known occurrences of SCs in target rocks, breccias, and vertical to overturned strata. Considering that strata surrounding the impact site are subhorizontal, we argue that disturbed strata are related to the impact event. Three types of breccias have been observed. Two of them (br1‐2 and br2) could be produced by erosion–sedimentation–consolidation processes, with no evidence for impact breccias, while breccia (br1) might be impact related. The most probable center of the structure is estimated at 31°59′13.73?N, 5°30′55.14?W using the concentric deviation method applied to the orientation of strata over the disturbed area. Despite the absence of a morphological expression, the ground magnetic and electromagnetic surveys reveal anomalies spatially associated with disturbed strata and SC occurrences. The geophysical data, the structural observations, and the area of occurrence of SCs in target rocks are all consistent with an original size of 1.4–4.2 km in diameter. Cosmogenic nuclide data (³⁶Cl) constrain the local erosion rates between 220 ± 22 m Ma^?1 and 430 ± 43 m Ma^?1. These erosion rates may remove the topographic expression of such a crater and its ejecta in a time period of about 0.3–1.9 Ma. This age is older than the Agoudal iron meteorite age (105 ± 40 kyr). This new age constraint excludes the possibility of a genetic relationship between the Agoudal iron meteorite fall and the formation of the Agoudal impact site. A chronolgy chart including the Atlas orogeny, the alternation of sedimentation and erosion periods, and the meteoritic impacts is presented based on all obtained and combined data.     

新元古代冰期及其年代

新元古代在全球范围内出现了几期冰期事件,称之为“雪球地球”事件。这种剧烈的环境变化带来此后地球上生命演化的一次飞跃。“雪球地球”事件的核心是全球冰期的同时性,需要同位素地质年代学的证据。新元古代末期两次主要的冰期事件是Marinoan冰期和Sturtian冰期,其中Marinoan冰期结束于635Ma;Sturtian冰期可能发生在710～720Ma,已发表的年龄数据限定它在670Ma之前结束。Marinoan冰期后的Gaskiers冰期发生在580～590Ma。对华南的古城、铁丝坳、长安组、江口组等进行进一步精确定年,将对限定Sturtian冰期持续时间和Cryogenian、南华系的下限年龄具有重要意义。