Timing of deformation in the Norseman-Wiluna Belt, Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia

Establishing relative and absolute time frameworks for the sedimentary, magmatic, tectonic and gold mineralisation events in the Norseman-Wiluna Belt of the Archean Yilgarn Craton of Western Australia, has long been the main aim of research efforts. Recently published constraints on the timing of sedimentation and absolute granite ages have emphasized the shortcomings of the established rationale used for interpreting the timing of deformation events. In this paper the assumptions underlying this rationale are scrutinized, and it is shown that they are the source of significant misinterpretations. A revised time chart for the deformation events of the belt is established. The first shortening phase to affect the belt, D₁, was preceded by an extensional event D_1e and accompanied by a change from volcanic-dominated to plutonic-dominated magmatism at approximately 2685–2675 Ma. Later extension (D_2e) controlled deposition of the ca 2655 Ma Kurrawang Sequence and was followed by D₂, a major shortening event, which folded this sequence. D₂ must therefore have started after 2655 Ma—at least 20 Ma later than previously thought and after the voluminous 2670–2655 Ma high-Ca granite intrusion. Younger transcurrent deformation, D₃–D₄, waned at around 2630 Ma, suggesting that the crustal shortening deformation cycle D₂–D₄ lasted approximately 20–30 Ma, contemporaneous with low-volume 2650–2630 Ma low-Ca granites and alkaline intrusions. Time constraints on gold deposits suggest a late mineralisation event between 2640–2630 Ma. Thus, D₂–D₄ deformation cycle and late felsic magmatism define a 20–30 Ma long tectonothermal event, which culminated with gold mineralisation. The finding that D₂ folding took place after voluminous high-Ca granite intrusion led to research into the role of competent bodies during folding by means of numerical models. Results suggest that buoyancy-driven doming of pre-tectonic competent bodies trigger growth of antiforms, whereas non-buoyant, competent granite bodies trigger growth of synforms. The conspicuous presence of pre-folding granites in the cores of anticlines may be a result from active buoyancy doming during folding.     

Old inherited origin for the present near-bimodal topography of Africa

Africa’s landscape is dominated by a manifold of second-order epeirogenic structures superimposed on a first-order bimodal topography. Bivariate regression analysis of Africa’s surface topography shows that this is a complexly folded surface with regionally elevated areas in southern and eastern Africa, and a topographically low northern and western Africa. The apparent spatial relationships between these features are analysed using anomaly correlation between surface topography and free-air gravity anomalies. Occurrences of positively correlated features between gravity and topography in Africa are found to be limited to second-order epeirogenic features. Geophysical modelling and geologic evidence indicate that Africa’s bimodal topography is genetically distinct from these second-order features, and linked to sources as deep as the sublithospheric mantle. The age, measured and modelled elevation of the bimodal topography require that topographic uplift of south-central Africa be episodic. We infer from our findings together with relative sea-level changes, that the near-bimodality of Africa’s topography is an ancient feature inherited at least from upper Paleozoic times. Our reconstructed paleotopography suggests that Africa was largely a low-lying continent dominated by its cratons, and that basement distribution disregards the present-day uplift patterns of Africa.     

Modelling the short-term response of the Greenland ice-sheet to global warming

 A two-dimensional vertically integrated ice flow model has been developed to test the importance of various processes and concepts used for the prediction of the contribution of the Greenland ice-sheet to sea-level rise over the next 350 y (short-term response). The mass balance is modelled by the degree-day method and the energy-balance method. The lithosphere is considered to respond isostatically to a point load and the time evolution of the bedrock follows from a viscous asthenosphere. According to the IPCC-IS92a scenario (with constant aerosols after 1990) the Greenland ice-sheet is likely to cause a global sea level rise of 10.4 cm by 2100 AD. It is shown, however, that the result is sensitive to precise model formulations and that simplifications as used in the sea-level projection in the IPCC-96 report yield less accurate results. Our model results indicate that, on a time scale of a hundred years, including the dynamic response of the ice-sheet yields more mass loss than the fixed response in which changes in geometry are not incorporated. It appears to be important to consider sliding, as well as the fact that climate sensitivity increases for larger perturbations. Variations in predicted sea-level change on a time scale of hundred years depend mostly on the initial state of the ice-sheet. On a time scale of a few hundred years, however, the variability in the predicted melt is dominated by the variability in the climate scenarios. Received: 21 August 1996/Accepted: 12 May 1997     

A record of accelerated erosion in the recent sediments of Blelham Tarn in the English Lake district

Two frozen cores from Blelham Tarn were subsampled and measured using mineral magnetic, loss-on-ignition (LOI), radiometric, granulometric and diatom analyses. A detailed chronology was established using varves, radioisotopes and diatoms. This has enabled an accurately dated reconstruction of sedimentation over the past forty years. Despite a large increase in lake productivity, evidence suggests that the observed exponential increase in sedimentation rates can be attributed to erosion within the catchment. The predominant sediment source has been identified as surface soil. A comparison between the trend of accelerated sedimentation and the record of increased sheep stocking density for the area within which the most of the catchment lies, as well as observations of contemporary surface processes within the catchment, both suggest that much of the recent erosion is a direct response to increased pressure from sheep grazing.     

Early Archean processes: evidence from the South African Kaapvaal craton and its greenstone belts (extended abstract)

Geologie en Mijnbouw -     

Flexible spectral methods for the generation of random fields with power-law semivariograms

Random field generators serve as a tool to model heterogeneous media for applications in hydrocarbon recovery and groundwater flow. Random fields with a power-law variogram structure, also termed fractional Brownian motion (fBm) fields, are of interest to study scale dependent heterogeneity effects on one-phase and two-phase flow. We show that such fields generated by the spectral method and the Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) have an incorrect variogram structure and variance. To illustrate this we derive the prefactor of the fBm spectral density function, which is required to generate the fBm fields. We propose a new method to generate fBm fields that introduces weighting functions into the spectral method. It leads to a flexible and efficient algorithm. The flexibility permits an optimal choice of summation points (that is points in frequency space at which the weighting function is calculated) specific for the autocovariance structure of the field. As an illustration of the method, comparisons between estimated and expected statistics of fields with an exponential variogram and of fBm fields are presented. For power-law semivariograms, the proposed spectral method with a cylindrical distribution of the summation points gives optimal results.     

The identifiability of parameters in a water quality model of the Biebrza River, Poland

The identifiability of model parameters of a steady state water quality model of the Biebrza River and the resulting variation in model results was examined by applying the Monte Carlo method which combines calibration, identifiability analysis, uncertainty analysis, and sensitivity analysis. The water quality model simulates the steady state concentration profiles of chloride, phosphate, ammonium, and nitrate as a function of distance along a river. The water quality model with the best combination of parameter values simulates the observed concentrations very well. However, the range of possible modelled concentrations obtained for other more or less equally eligible combinations of parameter values is rather wide. This range in model outcomes reflects possible errors in the model parameters. Discrepancies between the range in model outcomes and the validation data set are only caused by errors in model structure, or (measurement) errors in boundary conditions or input variables. In this sense the validation procedure is a test of model capability, where the effects of calibration errors are filtered out. It is concluded that, despite some slight deviations between model outcome and observations, the model is successful in simulating the spatial pattern of nutrient concentrations in the Biebrza River.     

Influence of the Load Wavelength on the Permeability of a Viscosity Interface in the Mantle

Assuming a radially stratified Newtonian mantle in a steady-state approximation, we demonstrate that the permeability of a viscosity interface at 660-km depth strongly depends on the wavelength of buoyancy forces driving the flow. The flow induced by long-wavelength loads penetrates through the boundary freely even if the viscosity increases by two orders. In contrast, the boundary is practically impermeable for short-wavelength loads located in the upper mantle. Thus, a stepwise increase of viscosity is a significant obstacle for small descending features in the upper mantle, but huge upper mantle downwellings, or upwellings formed in the-lower mantle can overcome it easily. This indicates that certain care is necessary in interpreting the seismic structure of the mantle by means of flow models. The global tomographic image includes only the first few degrees of the harmonic series and, consequently, its interpretation in terms of a present-day flow field results in a predominantly whole-mantle circulation even for extreme viscosity contrasts.     

Space-time mapping of soil salinity using probabilistic bayesian maximum entropy

The mapping of saline soils is the first task before any reclamation effort. Reclamation is based on the knowledge of soil salinity in space and how it evolves with time. Soil salinity is traditionally determined by soil sampling and laboratory analysis. Recently, it became possible to complement these hard data with soft secondary data made available using field sensors like electrode probes. In this study, we had two data sets. The first includes measurements of field salinity (EC_a) at 413 locations and 19 time instants. The second, which is a subset of the first (13 to 20 locations), contains, in addition to EC_a, salinity determined in the laboratory (EC_2.5). Based on a procedure of cross-validation, we compared the prediction performance in the space-time domain of 3 methods: kriging using either only hard data (HK) or hard and mid interval soft data (HMIK), and Bayesian maximum entropy (BME) using probabilistic soft data. We found that BME was less biased, more accurate and giving estimates, which were better correlated with the observed values than the two kriging techniques. In addition, BME allowed one to delineate with better detail saline from non-saline areas.