Proterozoic seawater — felsic volcanics interaction W. Bergslagen,Sweden. Evidence for high REE mobility and implications for 1.8 Ga seawater compositions

Mg enrichment in diffusely bounded, schistose alteration zones occurring in Proterozoic submarine felsic volcanics NE of Hjulsjö, W. Bergslagen is shown to result from felsic rock-seawater interaction in a sub-seafloor hydrothermal system. The alteration is apparently in two stages, feldspar being altered first to a kaolinite-type clay which is then replaced by Mg-chlorite. Major and trace element data are presented for the schist and sheridanite (chlorite). Relative to the least altered felsic volcanics, and for negligible volume change, the schist shows strong addition of Mg and to a lesser extent Si; K, Al and Rb are apparently conserved, while most other elements are strongly depleted, including the REEs which are removed for ～75%, indicating a high degree of mobility. The chlorite, with its HREE enriched pattern, is considered to have equilibrated with the hydrothermal fluid, which consisted predominantly of seawater. Comparison with modern seawater leads to the tentative conclusion that the Proterozoic seawater HREE composition was not drastically different from that of modern seawater.     

Effect of system variables and particle size on physical characteristics of air sparging plumes

Air was injected through a well in a thin transparent tank filled with saturated glass beads to study how the size and air saturation of air sparging plumes are affected by particle size and gradation; operational parameters such as injection pressure, well depth, injection pressure pulsing; and well outlet configuration. V-shaped air plumes with an apex between 40° and 60° were obtained for all tests. The air pressure required to initiate sparging agreed closely with the sum of the air entry pressure and the hydrostatic pressure, with higher initiation pressures required in the fine and well-graded beads. Higher air flow rates and air saturations were obtained in coarser beads at a given pressure, and the variation in flow rate was consistent with estimated air permeabilities. Peak average air saturations were 28–56% for the coarse-medium beads, 10% for the well-graded beads, and 8% for the fine beads. Air saturation and the radius of influence increased modestly (<40%) as the normalized injection pressure exceeded 0.1. Radius of influence increased by approximately a factor of two as the well depth increased, but leveled off once the ratio of radius of influence to well depth reached 0.60–1.05. Pulsing of injection pressure had no effect on the initiation pressure, air flow rate, or air saturation, but increased the size of the air plume and the radius of influence slightly (<15%). Well outlet configuration had only a slight affect the radius of influence (<10%), air saturation (<10%), or air flow rate (<12%). Dye testing showed that water surrounding the air plume circulated during continuous and pulsed sparging. However, pulsed sparging resulted in greater and more defined circulation of water within and adjacent to the air plume, which should reduce mass transfer limitations during sparging.     

An assessment of land degradation in the Save catchment of Zimbabwe

The lack of reliable baseline information on land degradation is a hindrance towards its monitoring and mitigation. Of particular interest is the identification of areas susceptible to degradation. In this study, remote sensing and GIS technologies were applied to detect and map susceptibility to land degradation in Buhera district, in Save catchment, Zimbabwe. Data used included Landsat TM and ETM imagery for 1992 and 2002, agro-ecological zones, vegetation cover and population density. The study identified five preliminary categories of degradation susceptibility ranging from very high to low.     

The Dublin Gulch intrusion-hosted gold deposit, Tombstone plutonic suite, Yukon Territory, Canada

The Dublin Gulch intrusion is a member of the Tombstone plutonic suite, a linear belt of middle Cretaceous intrusions that extend across the Yukon Territory. Like many of the intrusions in this suite, the Dublin Gulch intrusion is associated with several different zones of gold and tungsten mineralization, within and immediately adjacent to the intrusion. The Eagle zone (50.3 Mt @ 0.93 g/t gold), located in the southwestern part of the Dublin Gulch intrusion, hosts the most significant concentration of gold in the area. The gold occurs in a broadly east-west-striking, steeply south-dipping series of sheeted veins. The veins consist of early quartz-scheelite-pyrrhotite-pyrite-arsenopyrite, and are associated with K-feldspar-albite alteration envelopes. These grade out to and are overprinted by sericite-carbonate-chlorite alteration. The same assemblage also occurs in veinlets that refracture sheeted quartz veins and contain the majority of the gold. The gold occurs with molybdenite, lead-bismuth-antimony sulfosalts, galena, and bismuthinite. Gold correlates strongly with bismuth (r²=0.9), a relationship common to several intrusion-related gold deposits, but has a poor correlation with all other elements. Tungsten and molybdenum have a weak inter-element correlation (r²=0.55) and paragenetically pre-date the majority of gold precipitation. Lead, zinc, copper, silver, antimony, and arsenic have moderate to strong inter-element correlations (0.58 to 0.93). The change from tungsten-bearing mineralization through to gold-bismuth-rich ores with elevated syn- to post-ore lead, zinc, copper, silver, antimony, and arsenic can be grossly correlated with a change in hydrothermal fluid composition. Early scheelite-bearing quartz contains primary CO₂-rich fluid inclusions, which are post-dated by secondary inclusions with higher salinities (up to 15 wt% NaCl equiv.) and less CO₂. These latter inclusions are interpreted to coincide with the later gold-bismuth and base metal mineralization. The favored genetic model is one in which early CO₂-rich fluids exsolved from a magma with an initially high CO₂ content, but progressively became more saline and H₂O-rich as the system evolved.     

Jebel al Abyad: A recent alkalic volcanic complex in western Saudi Arabia

Arabia, a supposedly aseismic plate, has been the site of extensive alkalic volcanism during the past 10 m.y. The products of this activity, which extend intermittently from Syria to south central Saudi Arabia, are strongly alkalic and primarily basic in composition. Examination of specimens from the Jebel al Abyad area in Saudi Arabia, which displays a particularly wide variety of rock types, suggests the parental melt moved rapidly from depth to high level chambers where most of the chemical variation was produced by crystal fractionation. N-S dilational fissures of regional extent seem to have allowed the melt easy and rapid egress and a low degree of partial melting in the mantle could account for the high total alkalis content. The high K/Rb ratio, which also characterizes the granitic rocks of the underlying Precambrian basement, is thought to reflect a source mantle particularly low in rubidium.     

Consequences of deviatoric normality in plasticity with isotropic strain hardening

For many soils experimental evidence suggests that deviation from normality between the plastic strain increments and the yield function is exhibited mainly in the volumetric behaviour, whereas the deviatoric behaviour exhibits normality. An analysis of the consequence of this observation is presented, and it leads to an expression for the plastic potential function as composed of two functions, a yield function and another dependent only on the hydrostatic pressure; the latter is considered to constitute the concept of correction functions presented recently by Desai and Siriwardane¹³.     

Drastic shift in lava geochemistry in the volcanic-front to rear-arc region of the Southern Kamchatkan subduction zone: Evidence for the transition from slab surface dehydration to sediment melting

The shift of lava geochemistry between volcanic front to rear-arc volcanoes in active subduction zones is a widespread phenomenon. It is somehow linked to an increase of the slab surface depth of the subducting oceanic lithosphere and increasing thickness of the mantle wedge and new constraints for its causes may improve our understanding of magma generation and element recycling in subduction zones in general. As a case study, this paper focuses on the geochemical composition of lavas from two adjacent volcanic centres from the volcanic front (VF) to rear-arc (RA) transition of the Southern Kamchatkan subduction zone, with the aim to examine whether the shift in lava geochemistry is associated with processes in the mantle wedge or in the subducted oceanic lithosphere or both. The trace element and O-Sr-Nd-Hf-Pb (double-spike)-isotopic composition of the mafic Mutnovsky (VF) and Gorely (RA) lavas in conjunction with geochemical modelling provides constraints for the degree of partial melting in the mantle wedge and the nature of their slab components. Degrees of partial melting are inferred to be significantly higher beneath Mutnovsky (∼18%) than Gorely (∼10%). The Mutnovsky (VF) slab component is dominated by hydrous fluids, derived from subducted sediments and altered oceanic crust, eventually containing minor but variable amounts of sediment melts. The composition of the Gorely slab component strongly points to a hydrous silicate melt, most likely mainly stemming from subducted sediments, although additional fluid-contribution from the underlying altered oceanic crust (AOC) is likely. Moreover, the Hf-Nd-isotope data combined with geochemical modelling suggest progressive break-down of accessory zircon in the melting metasediments. Therefore, the drastic VF to RA shift in basalt chemistry mainly arises from the transition of the nature of the slab component (from hydrous fluid to melt) in conjunction with decreasing degrees of partial melting within ∼15 km across-arc. Finally, systematic variations of key inter-element with high-precision Pb-isotope ratios provide geochemical evidence for a pollution of the Mutnovsky mantle source with Gorely melt components but not vice versa, most likely resulting from trench-ward mantle wedge corner flow. We also present a geodynamic model integrating the location of the Mutnovsky and Gorely volcanic centres and their lava geochemistry with the recently proposed thermal structure of the southern Kamchatkan arc and constraints about phase equilibria in subducted sediments and AOC. Herein, the slab surface hosting the subducted sediments suffers a transition from dehydration to melting above a continuously dehydrating layer of AOC. Wider implications of this study are that an onset of (flush-) sediment melting may ultimately be the main trigger for the VF to RA transition of lava geochemistry in subduction zones.     

Geobotanical and biogeochemical reconnaissance of the ultramafics of Central Iran

In Iran, ultramafic rocks cover substantial areas at many locations in the country. These rocks consist predominantly of peridotite which has been serpentinized to some degree. Anarak and Nain are two ultramafic areas in Central Iran comprising about 180 and 270 km², respectively, located in a coloured melange zone. There is little information available regarding the geobotany and biogeochemistry of these areas. They have a dry climate, with low rainfall and high temperatures in summer which encourages mostly annual and perennial herbaceous types of plants. In this paper, we report a reconnaissance study of these two ultramafic areas of Iran. Soil analysis of total elements indicates that typical concentrations of Ni, Cr, Co, Mn, Fe, Mg and Ca are about 1500, 300, 75, 800, 45.000 150.000 and 2000 μg g^− 1, respectively. During this study 176 plant species were collected, belonging to 29 families. The species diversity at Anarak is more than at Nain, possibly due to microclimatic differences and a greater precipitation. The number of plants endemic to ultramafic soils of these two areas is very low. The herb Cleome heratensis (Capparaceae) appears to be an indicator of ultramafics in Central Iran. Populations of this plant cover quite extensive areas during summer and autumn when there is no rainfall. Analysis of the dry matter of the leaves of all plants collected did not reveal any hyperaccumulator of nickel or any other ‘serpentine’ metals. The ultramafic endemic plant C. heratensis contained low concentrations of all metals and thus it possesses exclusion mechanisms to restrict excessive metal uptake. The Mg/Ca ratio for some plants collected is high—up to 4.9. This initial survey suggests that a more complete investigation of the ultramafic areas of Iran would be valuable.     

Evaluation of Simultaneous Analyte Leaching/Vapour Phase Introduction for Direct Osmium Isotope Ratio Measurements in Solid Samples by Double-Focusing Sector Field ICP-MS

The analytical performance of a method for Os isotope ratio measurement by double‐focusing, sector field ICP‐MS (ICP‐SFMS) was evaluated. The method is based on several optimised, concurrent processes: Os extraction from samples in hot concentrated nitric acid; separation of Os from the digest solution by the formation of volatile osmium tetroxide accelerated by continuous hydrogen peroxide addition; transport of analyte vapour by an oxygen flow into the ICP; and isotopic determination by ICP‐SFMS. Due to the very efficient utilisation of analyte (approaching 0.5‰), Os isotope ratio measurement could be performed at low pg levels. Combined with an ability to process sample sizes up to 2 g (up to 50 g if the organic matrix of biological or botanical samples is eliminated by ashing), materials with Os concentrations in the low, or even sub pg g^?1 range could be determined by this method. Given that two complete digestion/distillation systems were available for interchangeable use, throughputs of up to fifteen samples per 8 hour shift could be achieved. The method precision, evaluated as the long‐term reproducibility of ¹⁸⁷ Os/¹⁸⁸Os ratio measurements in a commercial Os reference sample containing 0.5 ng Os, was 0.16% relative standard deviation (RSD, 1s). The method has been applied to perform replicate ¹⁸⁷ Os/¹⁸⁸ Os ratio measurements on a suite of fifty reference materials of various origins and matrix compositions, with Os concentrations varying from < 0.1 pg g^?1 to > 100 ng g^?1, yielding an average precision of 3% RSD. Though none of the materials tested are certified for Os content or Os isotope composition, comparison of the obtained data with published Os isotope information for similar sample types revealed close agreement between the two. The method can also be used for the simultaneous, semi‐quantitative determination of Os concentrations.