Bedform migration and bed-load transport in some rivers and tidal environments

Reliable field data obtained by directly measuring bed-load transport of fine- to coarse-grained bed material are extremely scarce, mainly because of the difficulty of sampling accurately. Therefore, the verification of bed-load transport formulae is largely based on flume experiments, which refer to unrealistic shallow-water conditions. In this study, some bed-load transport formulae were tested against data from natural environments. As an alternative to ascertaining the bed-load transport rate by sampling the bed-load, the transport rate was deduced from data on bedform height and bedform celerity. For this purpose, 43 sets of data from rivers, representing a wide range of bed material, bedform dimensions and hydraulic conditions were collected as were some sets of data from tidal settings. Two formulae were used for the prediction of the bed-load transport: the formula of Van Rijn (1981) and the Kalinske (1947) formula as approximated by Elzerman & Frijlink (1951) (and, in the present study, slightly modified for application to tidal waters). Both the bed-load function of Van Rijn and the modified formula of Kalinske-Frijlink require data which are easily obtained and that can be measured accurately. At those stages of the flow when bed-load transport was high the Van Rijn function tended to overestimate that transport. For flow stages when bed-load transport was low the opposite was true. The modified Kalinske-Frijlink function gave consistently good results: 86% of the transport rates predicted using the river data were within 0·5–2·0 times the values actually measured.     

Coronas and high-P veins in metagabbros of the Kohistan island arc, northern Pakistan: evidence for crustal thickening during cooling

Abstract The E-W-trending Kohistan terrane in the NW Himalaya is a sandwich of a magmatic arc between the collided Karakoram (Asian) and Indian plates. The southern part of the Kohistan arc is principally made up of amphibolites derived from volcanic and plutonic rocks of Early Cretaceous age. Gabbroic relics in the amphibolites display calc-alkaline character, and their mineralogy is similar to low-P plutonic rocks reported from modern and ancient island arcs. The largest of these relics, occurring along the southern margin of the amphibolite belt near Khwaza Khela, is subcircular in outline and is about 1 km across. It consists of cumulate gabbros and related rocks displaying a record of cooling and crustal thickening. Primary olivine and anorthite reacted to produce coronas consisting of two pyroxenes +Mg-Fe²⁺-Al spinel ± tschermakitic hornblende at about 800° C, 5.5–7.5 kbar. This thermotectonic event is of regional extent and may be related to the overthrusting of the Karakoram plate onto the Kohistan arc some 85 Ma ago, or even earlier. Later the gabbros were locally traversed by veins containing high-P assemblages: garnet, kyanite, zoisite, paragonite, oligoclase, calcite, scapolite and quartz ° Chlorite ° Corundum ± diopside. Formed in the range 510–600° C, and 10–12 kbar, these suggest further thickening and cooling of the crust before its uplift during the Tertiary. This paper presents microprobe data on the minerals, and discusses the tectonic implications of the coronitic and vein assemblages in the gabbros.