CHIME monazite ages of metasediments from the Altai orogen in northwestern China: Devonian and Permian ages of metamorphism and their significance

Abstract   The chemical Th-U-total Pb isochron method (CHIME) has been applied to determine the ages of monazite grains from metasediments of greenscshist-amphibolite facies in the Altai orogen, northwest China. The area of distribution of these metamorphic rocks is divided into the Permian (261–268 Ma) central-western and Devonian (377–382 Ma) eastern units on the basis of their metamorphic ages. The Devonian CHIME ages are consistent with the Pb–Pb ages of granitoid in the eastern unit, and support the idea that emplacement of the granitoids was synchronous with regional metamorphism at deep levels. The Permian metamorphic ages (the present study) and igneous ages previously reported from the central-western unit can be interpreted in terms of subduction of crustal material and oceanic plate, and rapid exhumation.     

Integrated colors of globular clusters

Integrated colors of M3, M5, M13, and M92 are calculated from the luminosity function, the color-magnitude diagram, and the two-color diagram to compare them with observed ones. The results show good agreements for M3, M13, and M92 and the discrepancy for M5. Possible causes for this discrepancy are discussed.To study the way in which integrated colors are affected by changes in the distribution of stars in the color-magnitude diagram, we calculate the integrated colors by taking into account changes in the distribution of horizontal branch stars and in the ratio of the number of horizontal branch stars to that of red giant branch stars. The result shows that (B-V) color varies within the range of about 0.1 mag with changes in the distribution of horizontal branch stars, implying that the cluster with a well-developed blue horizontal branch has bluer intrinsic integrated (B-V) color than that with yellow one. This tendency is compared with observation.     

新疆阿尔泰冲乎尔地区蓝晶石-夕线石型变质带独居石CHIME二叠纪年龄及其地质意义

新疆冲乎尔地区的蓝晶石-夕线石型递增变质带由绿泥石-黑云母带、黑云母-石榴石带、石榴石-十字石带、十字石-蓝晶石带和夕线石带组成;递增变质作用峰期温度、压力分别为T=520～640℃,p=(4.5～5.8)×108Pa;十字石-蓝晶石带和夕线石带变质岩中含有丰富的独居石,而且Th-U-Pb含量比较高,适合电子探针独居石CHIME法定年,独居石CHIME法确定的变质时代为268±10～261±20Ma,与阿勒泰地区发育的红柱石-夕线石型(低压型)变质带形成时代(262±10～264±22Ma)一致,说明阿尔泰造山带蓝晶石-夕线石型和红柱石-夕线石型递增变质带是同一次大规模的构造热事件的产物,时代为二叠纪中期。     

Small-Amplitude Disturbances in a Radiating and ScatteringGrey MediumI. Solutions of Given Real Frequency ω

We reanalyze the propagation of one-dimensional small-amplitude disturbances of given real frequency ω in a radiating and scattering grey medium using the Eddington approximation, which has been studied previously by us (Kaneko et al., 1976). Numerical results reveals three frequency regimes to be distinguished, and two wave modes always appear in each frequency regime. The governing equations and analytic solutions are derived for all wave modes using Whitham's method modified into quadratic form and approximate methods based on radiation thermodynamics. In the high-frequency regime appear the radiation-wave and adiabatic sound modes, which are damped by opacity and radiative cooling, respectively. Wave patterns in the intermediate-frequency and low-frequency regimes depend critically on the importance of radiation, for which the criterion is given in terms of the ratio of total specific heats at constant pressure and constant volume. When the radition overwhelms the matter (radiation-dominated case), the radiative mode in the intermediate-frequency regime is the constant-volume diffusion mode. When the matter overwhelms the radiation (matter-dominated case), damped radiation-wave and damped radiation-diffusion modes newly appear between the radiation-wave and constant-volume diffusion modes. The acoustic mode in the intermediate-frequency regime is the isothermal sound mode,which is damped by radiative cooling at higher frequencies and by radiation-thermal drag force at lower frequencies. Two modes appearing in the low-frequency regime are the isentropic radiation-acoustic and constant-pressure diffusion modes. The absorption coefficient derived for the former is shown to be a radiation-thermodynamic extension of that of Landau and Lifshitz (1987). The transition frequencies between all adjacent two modes are also derived to discuss the implications of them. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Biomarker records from core GH02-1030 off Tokachi in the northwestern Pacific over the last 23,000 years: Environmental changes during the last deglaciation

We investigated marine and terrestrial environmental changes at the northern Japan margin in the northwestern Pacific during the last 23,000 years by analyzing biomarkers (alkenones, long-chain n-alkanes, long-chain n-fatty acids, and lignin-derived materials) in Core GH02-1030. The U ₃₇^K′-derived temperature in the last glacial maximum (LGM) centered at 21 ka was ∼10°C, which was 2°C lower than the core-top temperature (∼12°C). This small temperature drop does not agree with pollen evidence of a large air temperature drop (more than 4°C) in the Tokachi area. This disagreement might be attributed to a bias of U ₃₇^K′-derived temperature within 2.5°C by a seasonal shift in alkenone production. The U ₃₇^K′-derived temperature was significantly low during the last deglaciation. Because this cooling was significant in the Kuroshio-Oyashio transition zone, the temperature drops are attributable to the southward displacement of the Kuroshio-Oyashio boundary. Abundant lignin-derived materials, long-chain n-alkanes and long-chain n-fatty acids indicate a higher contribution of terrigenous organic matter from 17 to 12 ka. This phenomenon might have resulted from an enhanced coastal erosion of terrestrial soils due to marine transgression and/or an efficient inflow of higher plant debris to river waters from 17 to 12 ka.     

Groundwater flow and storage processes in an inactive rock glacier

Groundwater flow through coarse blocky landforms contributes to streamflow in mountain watersheds, yet its role in the alpine hydrologic cycle has received relatively little attention. This study examines the internal structure and hydrogeological characteristics of an inactive rock glacier in the Canadian Rockies using geophysical imaging techniques, analysis of the discharge hydrograph of the spring draining the rock glacier, and chemical and stable isotopic compositions of source waters. The results show that the coarse blocky sediments forming the rock glacier allow the rapid infiltration of snowmelt and rain water to an unconfined aquifer above the bedrock surface. The water flowing through the aquifer is eventually routed via an internal channel parallel to the front of the rock glacier to a spring, which provides baseflow to a headwater stream designated as a critical habitat for an at‐risk cold‐water fish species. Discharge from the rock glacier spring contributes up to 50% of basin streamflow during summer baseflow periods and up to 100% of basin streamflow over winter, despite draining less than 20% of the watershed area. The rock glacier contains patches of ground ice even though it may have been inactive for thousands of years, suggesting the resiliency of the ground thermal regime under a warming climate.     

Hydrogeological implications of paleo-fluvial architecture for the Paskapoo Formation, SW Alberta, Canada: a stochastic analysis

Fluvial systems tend to deposit sediment in well-defined relational geometries and in vertically and laterally repeating patterns. These sedimentary deposits are preserved to varying degrees depending on how much the fluvial system reworks the deposits. The Paskapoo bedrock aquifer system in southern Alberta, Canada, was deposited in a foreland depositional basin during uplift of the Rocky Mountains, and both the geomorphic model and field evidence indicate that the upper 100 m of the local aquifer system contains well-preserved, highly connected paleo-channels and associated overbank deposits. In order to evaluate the value of different types of data, a simplified stochastic-numerical groundwater flow model was developed to examine the sensitivity of results to model parameters. Parameters examined include: fraction of the formation made up of channel sands; meander and sinuosity factors; width-to-depth ratios of preserved channels; and crevasse splay conductivity. In all cases examined, the system exhibited anisotropic behavior with the along-channel flow direction being the most permeable and the vertical direction being least permeable. In general, the strongest control on the resulting effective anisotropic hydraulic conductivities was channel fraction, but geometric factors that control between-channel connectivity (e.g., channel sinuosity) had an appreciable effect on the across-channel flow direction effective permeability.     

Cross-scale: multi-scale coupling in space plasmas

Most of the visible universe is in the highly ionised plasma state, and most of that plasma is collision-free. Three physical phenomena are responsible for nearly all of the processes that accelerate particles, transport material and energy, and mediate flows in systems as diverse as radio galaxy jets and supernovae explosions through to solar flares and planetary magnetospheres. These processes in turn result from the coupling amongst phenomena at macroscopic fluid scales, smaller ion scales, and down to electron scales. Cross-Scale, in concert with its sister mission SCOPE (to be provided by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency—JAXA), is dedicated to quantifying that nonlinear, time-varying coupling via the simultaneous in-situ observations of space plasmas performed by a fleet of 12 spacecraft in near-Earth orbit. Cross-Scale has been selected for the Assessment Phase of Cosmic Vision by the European Space Agency.      

Comparison of global synthetic seismograms calculated using the spherical 2.5-D finite-difference method with observed long-period waveforms including data from the intra-Antarctic region

We have been developing an accurate and efficient numerical scheme, which uses the finite-difference method (FDM) in spherical coordinates, for the computation of global seismic wave propagation through laterally heterogeneous realistic Earth models. In the field of global seismology, traditional axisymmetric modeling has been used widely as an efficient approach since it can solve the 3-D elastodynamic equation in spherical coordinates on a 2-D cross-section of the Earth, assuming structures to be invariant with respect to the axis through the seismic source. However, it has the severe disadvantages that asymmetric structures about the axis cannot be incorporated and the source mechanisms with arbitrary shear dislocation have not been attempted for a long time. Our scheme is based on the framework of axisymmetric modeling but has been extended to treat asymmetric structures, arbitrary moment-tensor point sources, anelastic attenuation, and the Earth center which is a singularity of wave equations in spherical coordinates. All these types of schemes which solve 3-D wavefields on a 2-D model cross-section are classified as 2.5-D modeling, so we have named our scheme the spherical 2.5-D FDM. In this study, we compare synthetic seismograms calculated using our FDM scheme with three-component observed long-period seismograms including data from stations newly installed in Antarctica in conjunction with the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007–2008. Seismic data from inland Antarctica are expected to reveal images of the Earth's deep interior with enhanced resolution because of the high signal-to-noise ratio and wide extent of this region, in addition to the rarity of sampling paths along the rotation axis of the Earth. We calculate synthetic seismograms through the preliminary reference earth model (PREM) including attenuation using a moment-tensor point source for the November 9, 2009 Fiji earthquake. Our results show quite good agreement between synthetic and observed seismograms, which indicates the accuracy of observations in the Antarctica, as well as the feasibility of the spherical 2.5-D modeling scheme.