Plio-Pleistocene landscape evolution in Northern Switzerland

Re-evaluation of the river history, palaeosurface levels and exhumation history in northern Switzerland for the last 10 million years reveals that distinct morphotectonic events about 4.2 and 2.8 million years ago (Ma) caused major reorganisation of river networks and morphosculpture. As a result of the earlier formation of the Swiss Jura, potential relief energy in the piggy-back North Alpine Foreland Basin (NAFB) of northern central Switzerland south of the Jura fold belt was built up after 11–10 Ma. It was suddenly released by river capture at about 4.2 Ma when the Aare-Danube was captured by a tributary of the Rhône-Doubs river system which rooted southeast of the Black forest. This event triggered rapid denudation of weakly consolidated Molasse sediments, in the order of about 1 km, as constrained by apatite fission track data from drillholes in the NAFB. Likely mechanisms of river capture are (a) headward erosion of Rhône-Doubs tributaries, (b) uplift and rapidly increasing erosion of the Swiss Alps after about 5.3 Ma, and (c) gravel aggradation at the eastern termination of the Jura fold belt in the course of eastward and northward tilt of the piggy-back NAFB. A morphotectonic event between 4.2 and 2.5 Ma, probably at about 2.8 Ma, caused a phase of planation, accompanied by local gravel aggradation and temporary storage of Alpine debris. Between 2.8 and 2.5 Ma, the Aare-Rhône river system is cannibalised by the modern Rhine River, the latter later connecting with the Alpine Rhine River.     

Age of intrusion and rapid cooling of the Frankenstein gabbro (Odenwald,SW-Germany) evidenced by40Ar/39Ar and single-zircon207Pb/206Pb measurements

The Frankenstein gabbro complex in the northern Odenwald/FR Germany is one of the Hercynian plutonic bodies of the Saxothuringian zone in the Variscan belt.⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr isotopic investigations on pyroxene,⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar age determinations on hornblendes, plagioclases, biotites and pyroxenes and²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁶Pb dating on single zircon crystals have been carried out. The⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr initial ratio of the gabbro (0.70380) indicates uncontaminated derivation of the magma from the mantle. The results on hornblendes, plagioclases and zircons establish the isotopic age of intrusion and the mode of cooling. Pyroxene and biotite data indicate disturbed K-Ar systems of these minerals. The average ages of the hornblendes (363±7 Ma), of the plagioclases (359±3 Ma) and of the zircons (362 ±9 Ma) agree within the 1-sigma levels and constrain the early history of the plutonic intrusion at the turn from Devonian to Carboniferous times. These minerals must have been cooled below their closure temperatures within a time-interval shorter than the error margins of 10 Ma. The ages therefore are, unlike those of the neighbouring Bergsträßer Odenwald, not long-time cooling ages due to largescale and slow geological uplift of the crustal segment. Instead, they will closely estimate the time of intrusion of the Frankenstein pluton into a shallow crustal level. The hiatus of about 20 Ma compared to the average ages of the crystalline rocks of the Bergsträßer Odenwald in the south characterizes the mafic Frankenstein pluton as a separated unit of the Odenwald crystalline, and underlines the importance of the Carboniferous tectonic fault zone in-between. The present data set clearly demonstrates the importance of the applied combination of methods and techniques to constrain the history of intrusion and cooling of mafic plutonic rocks.     

Correlation of δ18O and initial87Sr/86Sr ratios in Kirkpatrick basalt on Mt. Falla,transantarctic mountains

The ¹⁸O (SMOW) values of the Kirkpatrick Basalt (Jurassic) on Mt. Falla, Queen Alexandra Range, vary between +6.3 and +8.6 The apparent enrichment of these rocks in¹⁸O excludes the possibility that they were altered by interaction with aqueous solutions of meteoric origin. The ¹⁸O values of the flows correlate significantly with the initial⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios and all major elements. These correlations confirm the hypothesis that the basalt magma was contaminated by rocks of the continental crust through which it was extruded. Estimates of the chemical composition of the basalt magma and the contaminant, based on extrapolations of the new oxygen data, generally confirm earlier estimates based on extrapolations of initial⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios. The⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratio of the uncontaminated basalt was 0.7093 which indicates that magma may have originated by melting either in old Rb-enriched lithospheric mantle under Antarctica or in the overlying crust, or both.     

Elimination of Swimming Pool Water Disinfection By‐products with Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs)

Ozonation is a treatment step which was first applied in the 1960s in pool water treatment for disinfection as well as for oxidation of pool water contaminants. Contact time between ozone and pool water was identified to be of significance with an increased elimination efficiency regarding chloramines, trihalogenmethane formation potential and the permanganate index for longer reaction times. Oxidation via OH radicals might be the dominating pathway. In this study ozonation was compared with the ozone based advanced oxidation processes ozone/UV and ozone/hydrogen peroxide regarding the elimination efficiency of both disinfection by‐products (DBPs) and DBP precursors. It was observed that AOPs in comparison to ozonation showed an increased elimination efficiency regarding total organic carbon (TOC), the organically bound halogens adsorbable on activated carbon (AOX) and AOX formation potential. A contact time of 3 minutes between pool water and oxidant turned out to be practically sufficient. Just for the trihalomethane (THM) formation potential ozonation showed a slight advantage compared to the AOPs because ozonation is a highly selective oxidant and OH radical reactions are known to produce small reactive molecules which are easier transformed to THMs. Combination of membrane filtration and AOPs resulted in an elimination of 10 to 90 % of the DBPs and their precursors. The ozone/hydrogen peroxide process is suggested for pool water treatment because of the higher elimination rates compared to ozonation and of economic reasons compared to the ozone/UV process.     

Rb-Sr systematics of Permian volcanites in the Schwarzwald (SW-Germany)

Rb-Sr mineral ages and Sr isotopic ratios were determined for several Permian rhyolites of the Schwarzwald, mainly by using mica-apatite pairs. Extrusion ages between_307+5 and 286+7 Ma were found ( _Rb=1.42· 10^–11 a^–1, 2). The initial Sr isotopic ratios range from 0,710 to 0.7125, with one exception (St. Märgen: 0.706). The Rb-Sr age of the granite porphyry Schweighof in the Southern Schwarzwald is 323+4 Ma.Thus the subsequent volcanic activity of the Hercynian orogeny lasted nearly 20–30 Ma, starting in the Late Carboniferous and culminating in the Early Permian. The volcanic activity moved in time from South to North. In the Southern as well as the Northern Schwarzwald a hiatus of about 20 Ma exists between late orogenic plutonism and subsequent volcanism. The initial ratios lie on the crustal evolution line of Schwarzwald basement and favour, with the St. Märgen porphyry as exception, a crustal provenance of the volcanic magmas.