Listric extensional fault systems - results of analogue model experiments

Abstract Analogue models are a powerful tool for investigating progressive deformation in extensional fault systems. This paper presents exciting new insights into the progressive evolution of hanging wall structures in listric extensional terranes. Analogue models, scaled to simulate deformation in a sedimentary sequence, were constructed for simple listric and ramp/flat listric extensional detachments. For each detachment geometry homogeneous sand, sand/mica and sand/clay models were used to simulate respectively, deformation of isotropic sediments, of anisotropic sediments and of sedimentary sequences with competency contrasts. Roll-over anticlines with geometrically necessary crestal collapse graben structures are characteristic of the steepening-upwards segments of listric extensional fault systems in all of our models. With progressive deformation, crestal collapse grabens show hanging wall nucleation of new faults. Variations in graben size, amount of fault rotation and throw, are dependent on detachment curvature and amount of extension. Individual faults and associated fault blocks may significantly change shape during extension. Complex and apparently conjugate fault arrays are the result of superposition of successive crestal collapse grabens. Ramp/flat listric extensional fault systems are characterized by a roll-over anticline and a crestal collapse graben system associated with each steepening-upwards segment of the detachment and a ramp zone consisting of a hanging wall syncline and a complex deformation zone with local reverse faults. The roll-over anticlines and crestal collapse graben are similar in geometry to those formed in simple listric extensional systems. The models demonstrate that the geometry of the detachments exerts a fundamental control on the evolution of hanging wall structures. Analysis of particle displacement paths for these experiments provides new insights into the mechanical development of roll-over anticlines. Two general models for deformation above simple listric and ramp/flat listric extensional detachments have been erected.     

Linking Tarim Basin sea retreat (west China) and Asian aridification in the late Eocene

The Tarim Basin in western China formed the easternmost margin of a shallow epicontinental sea that extended across Eurasia and was well connected to the western Tethys during the Paleogene. Climate modelling studies suggest that the westward retreat of this sea from Central Asia may have been as important as the Tibetan Plateau uplift in forcing aridification and monsoon intensification in the Asian continental interior due to the redistribution of the land‐sea thermal contrast. However, testing of this hypothesis is hindered by poor constraints on the timing and precise palaeogeographic dynamics of the retreat. Here, we present an improved integrated bio‐ and magnetostratigraphic chronological framework of the previously studied marine to continental transition in the southwest Tarim Basin along the Pamir and West Kunlun Shan, allowing us to better constrain its timing, cause and palaeoenvironmental impact. The sea retreat is assigned a latest Lutetian–earliest Bartonian age (ca. 41 Ma; correlation of the last marine sediments to calcareous nannofossil Zone CP14 and correlation of the first continental red beds to the base of magnetochron C18r). Higher up in the continental deposits, a major hiatus includes the Eocene–Oligocene transition (ca. 34 Ma). This suggests the Tarim Basin was hydrologically connected to the Tethyan marine Realm until at least the earliest Oligocene and had not yet been closed by uplift of the Pamir–Kunlun orogenic system. The westward sea retreat at ca. 41 Ma and the disconformity at the Eocene–Oligocene transition are both time‐equivalent with reported Asian aridification steps, suggesting that, consistent with climate modelling results, the sea acted as an important moisture source for the Asian continental interior.     

The nation-state and the city: introduction to a debate

In recent years, the urban political landscape has become infused with a potent and incendiary mixture of popular-democratic, anti-globalisation, and separatist rhetoric. One central process driving this has been the problematic relations between the nation-state and the city. This Debates and Interventions forum aims to prompt a debate about where the city should be situated intellectually in respect of the nation-state. Four questions are addressed: (1) How do contemporary processes of urban development reflect changing national geopolitical priorities? (2) To what extent are struggles around immigration, citizenship and recognition conducted within cities rather than around the nation-state? (3) To what degree does the city (as e.g. a physical form, social environment or discourse) help to mobilise, propel and/or contest this new urban politics? And (4) Is the concept of a “post-national” global order appropriate for understanding the city and urban politics today?     

A rod-less piston corer for lake sediments; an improved, rope-operated percussion corer

A lightweight, percussion corer, suitable for use in remote lakes of moderate depth, is described. The operation of the corer and suggestions for securing and transporting long sediment cores are presented. In particular, the design and use of a recovery pot, which allows the retrieval of undisturbed cores from sediments of unknown depth, is detailed.