Yucatán karst features and the size of Chicxulub crater

The buried Chicxulub impact structure is marked by a dramatic ring of sinkholes (called cenotes if containing water), and adjacent less prominent partial rings, which have been shown to coincide with maxima in horizontal gravity gradients and a topographic depression. These observations, along with the discreteness and spacing of the features, suggest a formation mechanism involving faulting in the outer slump zone of the crater, which would thus have a diameter of approximately 180 km.
An opposing view, based primarily on the interpretation of gravity data, is that (he crater is much larger than the cenote ring implies. Given the association of the known cenote ring with faults, we here examine northern Yucatan for similar rings in gravity, surface features and elevation, which we might expect to be associated with outer concentric faults in the case of a larger, possibly multiring, structure.
No such outer rings have been found, although definite patterns are seen in the distribution of karst features outside the crater rim. We explain these patterns as resulting mainly from deformation related to the block fault zone that parallels tbe shelf edge of eastern Yucatan.     

Geostatistical regionalization of glacial aquitard thickness in northwestern Germany, based on fuzzy kriging

In many instances hydrogeological parameters obtained by conventional methods for selected localities within an aquifer or an aquitard are not sufficient for adequate regionalization at the scale of the entire layer. Here, we demonstrate an application of the fuzzy kriging method in regionalization of hydrogeological data, in which the set of conventional, crisp values is supplemented by imprecise information subjectively estimated by an expert. It is believed that such an approach eventually may reflect the real-world conditions more closely than a traditional crisp-value approach, because the former does not impose exactness artificially on phenomena which are diffuse by their nature. Spatial interpolation was done for the thickness of one of the major aquitards (till and glaciolacustrine clay) in northwestern Germany. The dataset consists of 329 crisp values from boreholes supplemented by 172 imprecise values defined as fuzzy numbers. It is demonstrated that the reliability of regionalization was higher, compared to regionalization performed with the crisp dataset only. Fuzzy kriging was performed with FUZZEKS (Fuzzy Evaluation and Kriging System) developed at the Ecosystem Research Center at the University of Kiel.     

Magmatic arc metamorphism: petrology and temperature history of metabasic rocks in the Coastal Cordillera of northern Chile

We investigated the metamorphic cooling history of underplated magmatic rocks at midcrustal depth. Granulites and amphibolites occur within the Jurassic magmatic belt of the Coast Range south of Antofagasta in northern Chile between 23°25' and 24°20' S. The protoliths of the metamorphic rocks are basic intrusions of Early Mesozoic age. They are part of the magmatically formed crust, and the essentially dry magmas were emplaced in an extensional regime. The granulites (clinopyroxene–orthopyroxene–plagioclase) show all stages of fabric development from magmatic to granoblastic fabrics. Pyroxene compositions were reset at temperatures around 800°  C independent of the stage of textural equilibration. The granulites were partially amphibolitized at upper amphibolite facies temperatures of 600–700°  C. Following cooling, a possible reheating to greenschist facies temperatures around 500°  C is indicated by prograde zoning in magnetite–ilmenite pairs. Mineral assemblages are not suitable for barometry, but a conservative estimation of the garnet-in reaction at given whole-rock compositions suggests maximum pressures in the granulite facies of around 5 kbar, and similar pressures are indicated by phengite barometry for the greenschist facies. The P–T  path of granulite–amphibolite metamorphism is one of slow cooling from magmatic temperatures with heterogeneous deformation. The thinning of the pre-Andean (Precambrian–Triassic) crust was apparently compensated by the magmatic underplating and this special tectonomagmatic setting caused the prolonged residence of the accreted rocks at midcrustal levels.     

Characterisation of brown coal humic acids and modified humic acids using pyrolysis gcms and other techniques

It has been proposed that Victorian brown coal can be considered as a two-component structure — a lignocellulosic “host”, containing various amounts of weakly bound or entrapped “guest” material together with very small amounts of inorganic and/or mineral matter. The latter predominantly consists of wax esters and/or terpenoid material. In this paper we describe attempts to gain structural information regarding the more complex, “host” component of the coal. Our initial model compound has been humic acid that can be readily obtained from the coal by alkaline extraction. It has been found that “pure” humic acid, free from material associated with the “guest” components of the coal, can be obtained by a highly selective, low-yielding alkaline extraction. This humic acid has been studied by nmr spectroscopy and pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (py-gc/ms). The products arising from py-gc/ms have been compared with those obtained from similar pyrolysis of whole coals. Alkylation of humic acids using alkyl halides in the presence of base has been successfully carried out and reactivity of the resulting materials compared with those of the parent coal and humic acid.