The sedimentary history of a debris-flow dominated, Devonian alluvial fan–a study of textural inversion

Karlskaret fan, with a radius of less than 11/2 km and dominated by debris-flow conglomerates, is one of numerous alluvial fans built out from the fault margins of Hornelen Basin (Devonian, Norway). The fan body is more than 170 m thick proximally, consists of four main coarsening-upwards segments and thins distally by a rising of its base and by a vigorous interfingering with very fine-grained sediments originating from an adjacent, impinging floodbasin system. Within the entire fan body, and within individual lobes, is a proximal-distal (and vertical) facies change from sheet-like, polymodal debris-flow conglomerates through matrix-rich conglomerates that are commonly distorted by loading, slumping and faulting, to remarkably sheet-like, matrix-rich granule sandstone of subaqueous debris-flow origin. Because the alluvial fan prograded into an actively aggrading floodbasin the primary fanglomerates, themselves having been subject to some sorting on the fan surface, incorporated large quantitites of very fine sediments. This inclusion of fines, effectively a textural inversion on the lower fan reaches, frequently led to remobilization and resedimentation of material beyond the fan toe. Anomalous maximum particle size/bed thickness relationships and a variety of graded textures within these resedimented beds suggest deposition in lacustrine areas of the adjacent floodbasin.     

Recurrent interaction between the Norwegian Channel Ice Stream and terrestrial‐based ice across southwest Norway

The occurrence of till beds alternating with glaciomarine sediment spanning oxygen isotope stages 6 to 2, combined with morphological evidence, shows that the southwestern fringe of Norway was inundated by an ice stream flowing through the Norwegian Channel on at least four occasions, the last time being during the Late Weichselian maximum. All marine units are deglacial successions composed of muds with dropstones and diamictic intrabeds and a foraminiferal fauna characteristic of extreme glaciomarine environments. Land‐based ice, flowing at right angles to the flow direction of the ice stream, fed into the ice stream along an escarpment formed by erosion of the ice stream. Each time the ice stream wasted back, land‐based ice advanced into the area formerly occupied by the ice stream. During the last deglaciation of the ice stream (c. 15 ka BP), the advance of the land‐based ice occurred immediately upon ice stream retreat. As a result, the sea was prevented from inundating the upland areas, allowing most of the glacioisostatic readjustment to occur before the land‐based ice melted back at about 13 ka BP. This explains the low Late Weichselian sea levels in the area (10–20 m) compared with those of the Middle Weichselian and older sea‐level high stands (～200 m). Regional tectonic movements cannot explain the location of the observed marine successions. The highest sea level recorded (>200 m) is represented by glaciomarine sediments from the Sandnes interstadial (30–34 ka BP). Older interstadial marine sediments are found at somewhat lower levels, possibly as a result of subsequent glacial erosion in these deposits. Ice streams developed in the Norwegian Channel during three Weichselian time intervals. This seems to correspond to glacial episodes both to the south in Denmark and to the north on the coast of Norway, although correlations are somewhat hampered by insufficient dating control.     

Stratigraphic architecture and infill history of a deglaciated bedrock valley based on georadar, seismic profiling and drilling

The sediment fill of a silled bedrock valley in Western Norway has been investigated with respect to stratigraphy and infill history using a combination of mapping, georadar, seismic profiling and drilling. A small outlet glacier occupies the head of the valley that displays a stepwise down-valley profile and terminates in a lake at 29 m above sea-level. The valley is surrounded by high, steep bedrock slopes and is characterized by a series of filled basins each limited by sills of bedrock or moraine accumulations. Till, glacial outwash and/or rockslide deposits fill in the lower half of the two larger basins. (Fan) delta deposits fringed by the deposits of alluvial fans and colluvial cones dominate the upper fill of most basins. (Fan) delta deposits interfinger downstream with lake sediments in the larger basins and fluvial deposits comprise the top fill. The overall infill pattern was controlled by deglaciation as well as basin size and shape. An overall decreasing sediment supply following deglaciation is shown in the fill of a larger basin down-valley, whereas a recently increasing sediment supply during glacier growth is reflected primarily in an upstream basin. Only the lowermost basin was exposed to a sea-level drop from 75 m above sea-level to the present lake level associated with incision and river migration. This observation is in contrast to the basins above marine influence where incision has been limited due to fixed downstream sills resulting in insignificant erosion except for some fan-head entrenchment. It follows that the fills of these small valley basins display progradational and aggradational trends of deposition and paraglacial reworking has been limited. Additionally, the study demonstrates that georadar profiling, combined with other methods, is very useful for comprehensive investigation of valley basins.     

Rapid tunnel-valley formation beneath the receding Late Weichselian ice sheet in Vendsyssel, Denmark

Interpretation of Transient ElectroMagnetic (TEM) data and wire-line logs has led to the delineation of an intricate pattern of buried tunnel valleys, along with new evidence of glaciotectonically dislocated layers in recessional moraines in the central part of Vendsyssel, Denmark. The TEM data have been compared with recent results of stratigraphical investigations based on lithological and biostratigraphical analyses of borehole samples and dating with Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) and radiocarbon. This has provided an overview of the spatial distribution of the late Quaternary lithostratigraphical formations, and the age of the tunnel valleys has been estimated. The tunnel valleys are typically 5–10 km long, 1 km wide and are locally eroded to depths of more than 180 m b.s.l. The valleys are interpreted to have been formed by subglacial meltwater erosion beneath the outermost part of the ice sheet during temporary standstills and minor re-advances during the overall Late Weichselian recession of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet. The formation of the tunnel valleys occurred after the retreat of the Main ice advance c . 20 kyr BP and before the Lateglacial marine inundation c . 18 kyr BP. Based on the occurrence of the tunnel valleys and the topography, four ice-marginal positions related to the recession of the northeastern Main advance and seven ice-marginal positions related to the recession from the following eastern re-advance across Vendsyssel are delineated. All the tunnel valleys were formed within a time interval of a few thousand years, giving only a few hundred years or less for the formation of the tunnel valleys at each ice-marginal position.     

Processes in High-Mg, High-T Magmas: Evidence from Olivine, Chromite and Glass in Palaeogene Picrites from West Greenland

Uncontaminated volcanic rocks from the 60 Ma Vaigat Formation,West Greenland, contain 6·5–30 wt % MgO, averaging15·5 wt % MgO. Olivine (mg-number 77·4–93·3)forms diverse assemblages of zoned phenocrysts and xenocrystsshowing evidence for equilibrium and fractional crystallization,oxidation, partial to complete re-equilibration, as well asmagma mixing. The olivine crystals contain glass inclusionsand have high contents of Ca and Cr, indicating that all olivineswith up to mg-number 93·0 crystallized from melts. Associatedchromites (mg-number 45·4–77·2) are essentiallyunzoned and in equilibrium with the olivines. Matrix glassesfrom pillow breccias have 6·7–8·8 wt % MgOand quenched close to 1200°C with oxidation states one log-unitabove the NNO (nickel–nickel oxide) buffer. Compositionaldifferences between the glasses from different volcanic membersare inherited from the primary melts. The magmas erupted ascrystal-charged melts, and liquids with more than     

Cave stratigraphy in western Norway; multiple Weichselian glaciations and interstadial vertebrate fauna

Skjonghclleren is a marine-cut cave with 15–20. m thick pre-Holocene sediments. Corings and excavations reveal three beds of extremely fine-grained, laminated sediments alternating with blocky sediments. The laminated beds are interpreted as glaciolacustrine sediments deposited subglacially at times when ice sheets covered the area, suggesting at least three glaciations after the cave was formed. The blocky/diamictic sediments were formed by frost-shattered blocks from the roof of the cave during ice-free periods, and mixing with the fines through slow mass movements along the floor of the cave. In the diamictic sediment beneath the uppermost laminated bed, almost 7,000 bone and teeth fragments of birds, mammals and fish were found. Birds dominated, with little auk and brunnich's guillemot as the most frequently occurring species. Arctic fox was the dominating mammal. During climatic optimum of the interstadial, conditions seem to have been similar to present-day coastal Finnmark, with North Atlantic warm water entering the Norwegian Sea. Two radiocarbon dates on bones and three Uranium series dates on speleothems from this bed all cluster around 30,000 B.P., i.e., the end of the Ålesund interstadial. Above the uppermost laminated bed, bone fragments of birds, fish and mammals, deposited between c . 12,000 and c . 10,000 B.P., were found. Little auk dominate. The occurrence of squirrel is worth noting since it is limited mainly to areas with coniferous forest today. The beds below the 30,000B.P. bed are poorly dated or undated, but it is tentatively concluded that the entire sediment sequence was deposited during the Weichselian stage. It seems that the cave was formed at a high relative sea-level stand sometime during the Early Weichsclian. Two recorded palaeomagnetic excursions seem to correlate with the Laschamp/Olby and the Lake Mungo events, respectively.     

A symposium on Nordic Quaternary research in 1986

Different topics of Quaternary geology were dealt with at a symposium arranged in 1986 in Århus, Denmark: (1) reviews on recent Quaternary research in the Nordic countries, (2) studies of stratigraphy and geological processes in the Fennoscandian Border Zone, which demonstrate that the Quaternary deposition pattern is highly influenced by tectonic movements, and (3) Quaternary research as it can be applied to geotechnical investigations in the search for raw materials, in connection with pollution, and with conservation.     

Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating of glacial sediments from Arctic Russia - depositional bleaching and methodological aspects

Optical dating has been extensively used for stratigraphical correlation in the reconstruction of Eurasian ice-sheet dynamics and palaeoenvironmental changes during the last glaciation. In recent terrestrial studies in Arctic Russia, Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) is the main chronological tool, and has been used across the whole of the Eurasian north. We report new OSL ages obtained on glaciofluvial and glaciolacustrine sediments from the Arkhangelsk and Taymyr regions of Arctic Russia and discuss the characteristics of the quartz OSL signal in terms of its saturation limit, variability among samples from the same location, and initial signal resetting in different depositional environments. It is shown that effect of partial bleaching in our mainly Weichselian samples is trivial because: modern analogues are well zeroed; there is good agreement between OSL and ¹⁴C ages in young samples; and skewness in the dose distribution of relatively older samples is mainly due to varying shapes of the growth curves. The overall reliability of the OSL ages from Arctic Russia, when compared with the limited independent age controls available, appears to be good.     

The Petrology and Geochemistry of the Aniakchak Caldera-forming Ignimbrite, Aleutian Arc, Alaska

Aniakchak caldera, Alaska, produced a compositionally heterogeneousignimbrite 3400 years ago, which changes from rhyodacitic atthe base to andesitic at the top of the eruptive sequence. Interpretationsof compositionally heterogeneous ignimbrites typically includeeither in situ fractional crystallization of mafic magma andgeneration of a stratified magma body or replenishment of asilicic magma chamber by mafic inputs. Another possibility,silicic replenishment of a more mafic chamber, exists. Geochemicalcharacteristics of the caldera-forming rhyodacite and severallate pre-caldera rhyodacites indicate independent origins foreach, within a maximum of 5000 years prior to caldera formation.Isotopic considerations preclude derivation of the caldera-formingrhyodacite from the caldera-forming andesite. However, the caldera-formingrhyodacite can be explained as the residual liquid of a mostlycrystallized basalt, with addition of crustal material. TheAniakchak andesite probably formed in a shallow chamber by successivemixing events involving small volumes of basalt and rhyodacite,together with contamination. The pre-caldera rhyodacites representerupted portions of intruding silicic magma, whereas anotherportion homogenized with the resident mafic magma. The caldera-formingevent reflects a large influx of rhyodacite, which erupted beforesignificant mixing occurred and also triggered draining of muchof the andesitic magma from the chamber. KEY WORDS: Aniakchak; caldera-forming eruption; geochemistry; ignimbrite; silicic replenishment