Role of subducted sediments in island-arc magmatism: constraints from REE patterns

Continental sedimentary rocks of post-Archean age are characterized by europium depletion relative to the other REE. Typical values for Eu/Eu* are 0.65±0.05 (where Eu* is the theoretical value for no chondrite-normalized Eu anomaly).Basalts and andesites from island-arc suites rarely display significant europium anomalies. Calculations indicate that the maximum amount of sediment that can be admixed without producing a signature of Eu depletion is: (a) 10% for a MORB source; (b) 1% for primitive mantle or a single-stage depleted mantle, and (c) 0.1–0.3% for a two-stage depleted mantle.     

Observations of contemporary arroyo cutting near Santa Fe,New Mexico,U.S.A.

Arroyo cutting that began in the American Southwest in the 1880s is associated with sudden runoff, a circumstance characteristic of this semiarid region in which occasional intense rainfall exceeds the capacity of the ground to absorb water. This report describes two arroyos in an area of moderately dissected bolson deposits southwest of Santa Fe, Cañada de la Cueva and Pueblo Cañon, where arroyo cutting since 1970 has been closely related to runoff from summer rain. The area is vegetated chiefly by grama grass and scattered juniper. Cutting is monitored by repeated surveys of channel floors, cross-sections, and headcuts, and by repeated photographs taken as stereopairs. Rainfall and discharge are measured simultaneously in 5-minute intervals by dual digital recorders at a gauging station on Cañada de la Cueva (drainage area 4.64 km²). Discharge has been as much as 18.2 m³/s from rainfall of 25.2 mm. The maximum 15-minute intensity for this storm was 64.0 mm/hr, and runoff was 7.9 mm. The flood peak arrived in 20 minutes, by which time 80 per cent of the rain had fallen, and the flow subsided to a tenth of its maximum in less than an hour. This storm at Pueblo Cañon (drainage area 13.3 km² above the place of measurement) resulted in an estimated discharge of 140 m³/s, and features produced by hail on the channel floor suggest that the duration of flow could have been as brief as 30 minutes. Observed increments of headward cutting at Cañada de la Cueva range from 0.28 m for 1.8 mm of runoff to 4.9 m for 12 mm of runoff. Aggregate cutting in 5 years has been as much as 13.7 m, resulting in erosion of 570 m³ of alluvium. Headward cutting near the mouth of Pueblo Cañon has been observed in increments of 10.3, 14.6, and 20.7 m, for an aggregate of 45.6 m, as measured from 1971 to 1974. This cutting removed 1,770 m³ of alluvium.     

Origin of organic matter in the early solar system—VII. The organic polymer in carbonaceous chondrites

The insoluble polymer from the Murchison C2 chondrite was studied by a variety of degradation techniques: pyrolysis, depolymerization by Na₄P₂O₇ or CF₃COOH, and oxidation by HNO₃, Na₂Cr₂O₇, or O₂/UV light. Products were identified by IR spectroscopy, gas chromatography, and mass spectrometry (time-of-flight and high-resolution). In some cases, parallel measurements were made on a synthetic polymer produced by the Fischer-Tropsch reaction, a meteoritic polymer from the Allende C3V chondrite, and samples of coal or related materials.Our studies confirm the prevailing view that the meteoritic polymer has a bridged aromatic structure with functional groups such as COOH, OH, and CO, but provides much new detail. Oxidation with HNO₃ shows that the meteoritic and synthetic polymers have a similar degree of condensation, greater than that of high-volatile bituminous coal. Gentler oxidation with Cr₂O^2?₇ or O₂/UV led to the identification of 15 aromatic ring systems as the corresponding carboxylic acids: benzene, biphenyl, naphthalene and phenanthrene and their methyl derivatives, fluoranthene (or pyrene), chrysene, fluorenone, benzophenone, anthraquinone; and the heterocyclics dibenzofuran, benzothiophene, dibenzothiophene, pyridine, quinoline (or isoquinoline), and carbazole. Of 11 aliphatic acids identified, three dicarboxylic acids presumably came from hydroaromatic portions of the polymer, whereas eight monocarboxylic acids probably are derived from bridging groups or ring substituents.Depolymerization with CF₃COOH yielded some of the same ring systems, as well as alkanes (C₁–C₈) and alkenes (C₂–C₈), alkyl (C₁–C₅) benzenes and naphthalenes, and methyl- or dimethyl-indene, -indane, -phenol, -pyrrole, and -pyridine. All these compounds were detected below 200°C, and hence probably were indigenous constituents rather than pyrolysis products.Though the match between the synthetic and meteoritic polymer is only fair, several properties of the latter suggest that it, too, was produced by surface catalysis: the predominance of n-alkyl fragments, its occurrence as a surface coating on specific kinds of mineral grains, and the $\text{C}{}^{13}\text{C}{}^{12}$ fractionation between polymer and coexisting carbonates.     

Origin of rapidly solidified metal-troilite grains in chondrites and iron meteorites

Inclusions of troilite and metallic Fe,Ni 0.2–4 mm in size with a dendritic or cellular texture were observed in 12 ordinary chondrites. Cooling rates in the interval 1400?950°C calculated from the spacing of secondary dendrite arms or cell widths and published experimental data range from 10^?7 to 10⁴°C/sec. In 8 of these chondrites, which are breccias containing some normal slow-cooled metal grains, the inclusions solidified before they were incorporated into the breccias. Their cooling rates of 1–300 °C/sec indicate cooling by radiation, or by conduction in contact with cold silicate or hot silicate volumes only 6–40 mm in size. This is quantitative evidence that these inclusions and their associated clasts were melted on the surface of a parent body (by impact), and were not formed at depth from an internally derived melt. In Ramsdorf, Rose City and Shaw, which show extensive reheating to ? 1000°C, Fe-FeS textures in melted areas are coarser and indicate cooling rates of 10^?1 to 10^?4°C/sec during solidification. This metal may have solidified inside hot silicate volumes that were 10–300 cm in size. As Shaw and Rose City are breccias of unmelted and melted material, their melted metal did not necessarily cool through 1000°C within a few m of the surface. Shock-melted, fine-grained, irregular intergrowths of metal and troilite formed in situ in many irons and some chondrites by rapid solidification at cooling rates of ? 10⁵°C/sec. Their kamacite and taenite compositions may result from annealing at ~250°C of metallic glass or exceedingly fine-grained quench products.     

Arsenic metabolism in a marine food chain

Radioarsenic was used to identify various chemical forms of arsenic, accumulated as arsenate from food or water, in a three-step food chain consisting of an autotroph, a grazer and a carnivore. Differential extraction procedures carried out on tissues from these organisms suggest that organic forms of arsenic in marine food webs are derived from an in vivo synthesis by primary producers and are efficiently transferred along a marine food chain. The muscle tissue of the carnivorous shrimp which represented the highest trophic level in this food chain could not itself form organic arsenic; in this case arsenate taken up from water was converted largely to arsenite.     

Thallium: a sensitive indicator of rock/seawater interaction and of sulfur saturation of silicate melts

Radiochemical neutron activation analysis for Tl in a number of young pillow basalts, hydrothermally altered basalts and associated hydrothermal and hydrogenous Mn crusts from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and adjacent regions of the North Atlantic indicate that Tl is a sensitive indicator of both S saturation of silicate melts and of rock/seawater interactions. Rb-Cs-K-Tl trend lines for fresh MAR basalts (whose melts remained saturated with S during silicate fractionation) are distinctly different to Hawaiian basalts whose melts lost S during or prior to eruption, but were saturated with S at an earlier stage. Varying degrees of Tl enrichment are found in the hydrogenous Mn nodules (91,000 ppb), hydrothermal Mn crusts (2300–32,000 ppb), palagonitized glass (300–2700 ppb), hydrothermally altered basalts (1140–4560 ppb), and even slightly altered pillow interiors (11–45 ppb) relative to the fresh glasses (6–12 ppb). This enrichment has taken place due to incorporation of Tl into secondary silicate phases along with the alkalis and also due to co-precipitation of Tl with ferromanganese oxides and hydroxides. Thallium enrichment in the hydrothermal products is interpreted as being due to cooling and oxidation of hydrothermal fluids as these approached the sea floor. Haloes of Tl-enriched country rock may occur around sulfide deposits in which seawater has acted as the ore fluid.     

Metallic minerals,thermal histories and parent bodies of some xenolithic,ordinary chondrite meteorites

We have studied metal grains in the hosts and lithic fragments of widely differing petrologic types in four xenolithic chondrftes, using reflected-light microscopy and electron-probe analysis. In Weston and Fayetteville, which both contain solar-flare tracks and solar-wind gases, kamacite, taenite and tetrataenite (ordered FeNi) and troilite show a variety of textures. On a Wood plot of central Ni content vs dimension, taenite analyses scatter as if metal grains cooled at rates of 10–1000 and 1–100 K/Myr respectively through 700 K, although metal in an H6 clast in Fayetteville plots coherently with a cooling rate of 50 K/Myr. We propose that metal grains cooled at these rates in chondritic clasts at different locations before host and clasts were compacted, and were not subsequently heated above 650 K. We predict a similar history for all gas-rich ordinary chondrites.By contrast, metallic minerals throughout Bhola and Mezö-Madaras show more uniform textures and plot coherently giving cooling rates in the range 750 to ~600 K of 0.1 and 1 K/Myr, respectively. We conclude that host and xenoliths in both chondrites were slowly cooled after compaction. Thus clasts in these chondrites experienced peak metamorphic temperatures and slow cooling through 700 K in different environments.According to the conventional onion-shell model for H, L or LL chondrite parent bodies, material of petrologic types 3–5 was arranged in successive shells around a type 6 core prior to catastrophic collisions which mixed all types intimately. But if peak metamorphic temperatures were reached during, not after accretion, as seems plausible, maximum metamorphism may have occurred in planetesimals <10 km in radius. Cooling through 700 K may then have occurred in larger bodies that accreted from these planetesimals. Iron meteorites, mesosiderites and some achondrites may also have experienced melting in planetesimals and slow cooling in larger bodies.     

Temporal Variations in Sea Surface Topography and Dynamics of the Earth's Inertia Ellipsoid

Temporal variations in the nine elements of the Earth's inertia ellipsoid due to sea surface topography dynamics were derived from TOPEX/POSEIDON altimeter data 1993 - 1996. The variations amount to about 10 mm in the position of the center of the Earth's inertia ellipsoid (E _i ), 0.15' in the polar axis direction of E _i and to about 0.0003 in the denominator of its polar flattening. The approach used is based on the temporal variations of distortions computed by means of the geopotential model EGM96 which is used as reference.