Apatite fission-track analysis of Neogene exhumation in northern Corsica (France)

Apatite fission-track analyses along a W–E-orientated transect across northern Corsica indicate an important episode of crustal exhumation in late early Miocene time. Samples taken from the Alpine orogenic wedge, from the adjacent foreland basin and from the crystalline basement complex flooring the basin are completely reset. This implies that a ≥ 2.0–2.3-km-thick crustal section made of thrust sheets and/or autochthonous foreland deposits has been removed by erosion since early Miocene time. A geometric projection of this lost cover towards the west indicates that all of northern Corsica was covered either by Alpine nappes or middle Eocene foreland deposits. Fission-track ages are the same across the main boundary fault system separating the Alpine orogenic wedge and the foreland, indicating the absence of significant differential vertical displacement between upper and lower plates during Neogene unroofing.     

Correction to: Benchmarking the software packages to model and assess the seismic response of unreinforced masonry existing buildings through nonlinear static analyses

Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering - A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-021-01105-0     

Emplacement mechanism of gravity flows inferred from high resolution Lidar data: The 1944 Somma–Vesuvius lava flow (Italy)

A Digital Terrain Model derived from high resolution Lidar data allows the determination of the morphometric and physical parameters of a lava flow erupted from the Somma–Vesuvius volcano in 1944. The downstream variation of morphometric parameters including slope, aspect, relative relief, thickness, width, and cross sectional area is analyzed, and the changes in viscosity, velocity and flow rate are estimated. The aims of the analyses are to recognize different flow surfaces, to reconstruct the flow kinematics, and to obtain information on the mechanism of emplacement. The results indicate that the 1944 lava flow can be divided in three sectors: a near vent sector (NVS) characterized by a toe-like surface, an intermediate sector (IS) with an ‘a’ātype brittle surface, and a distal sector (DS) with a sheet-like ductile surface. Lateral leveés and channels do not occur in NVS, whereas they are well developed in IS. In DS, leveés increase with an increasing distance from the vent. Fold-like surfaces occur in NVS and DS, reflecting local shortening processes due to a decrease in the slope of the substratum and overflows from the main channel. IS and DS emplaced between March 18 and 21, 1944, whereas NVS emplaced on March 19 and partly covered IS. The morphometric and physical parameters indicate that IS moved in a ‘tube’-like regime, whereas DS emplaced in a 'mobile crust' regime. The IS to DS transition is marked by an increase in velocity and the flow rate, and by a decrease in thickness, width, cross sectional area, and viscosity. This transition is due to an abrupt increase in the slope of the substratum. The estimated velocity values are in good agreement with the measurements during the 1944 eruption. The analysis used here may be extended to other lava flows. Some gravity flows (debris/mud flows, floods, and avalanches) have rheological properties and shapes similar to those of lavas, and the same process-form relationships may apply to these flows. The approach used here may be therefore useful for evaluating hazards from various gravity currents.     

Flow Behavior of Clay-Silt to Sand-Silt Water-Rich Suspensions at Low to High Shear Rates: Implications for Slurries, Transitional Flows, and Submarine Debris-Flows

Water-rich clay to sand suspensions show a shear rate dependent flow behavior and knowledge of the appropriate rheological model is relevant for sedimentological, industrial and hydraulic studies. We present experimental rheological measurements of water-rich (40 to 60 wt%) clay to silt (population A) and silt to sand (population B) suspensions mixed in different proportions. The data evidence a shear rate dependent shear thinning-shear thickening transition. At lower shear rates, the suspensions organize in chains of particles, whereas at higher shear rates, these chains disrupt so increasing the viscosity. The viscosity, consistency and yield stress decrease as the A+B fraction decreases as the content of B particles increases. This behavior reflects the competing effects of the lubrication and frictional processes as a function of particle size and water content. Transitional flows form by the incorporation of small amounts of the finer fraction while ‘oceanic floods’ form at the estuary of rivers and the submarine debris-flows increase their velocity by incorporating water. The critical Reynolds number of the studied suspensions is ~2000±100 suggesting that the grainsize plays a major role in the laminar to turbulent transition. Our results have implications for the modeling of sediment flows and the hazard related to floods.     

Dating Gondwanan continental crust at the Rio Grande Rise,South Atlantic

Crystalline continental rocks and associated crust‐contaminated basaltic rocks were unexpectedly dredged on the crest and at seamounts of the Rio Grande Rise, South Atlantic. Zircon U–Pb ages of one gabbro (ca. 2,200 Ma) and four granitoids (between ca. 1,430–480 Ma) indicate that the breakup of SW Gondwana left behind continental fragments of dominantly African age. These rocks may have been incorporated into the oceanic lithosphere by complex processes including rifting and interaction of the Tristan‐Gough mantle plume with hyperextended continental margins. Until ca. 80–70 Ma, the Rio Grande Rise and an old portion of the Walvis Ridge formed a conjugate pair of aseismic ridges, and the Tristan‐Gough plume was positioned at the Mid‐Atlantic Ridge. The finding of continental rock fragments in one of these conjugate pairs opens new perspectives on the mechanisms of continental break‐up, the nature of this conjugate pair, and the geodynamic evolution of rifted Gondwana margins in the South Atlantic.     

A Mössbauer and FTIR study of synthetic amphiboles along the magnesioriebeckite – ferri-clinoholmquistite join

A series of amphiboles along the magnesioriebeckite—Na₂Mg₃Fe³⁺ ₂Si₈O₂₂(OH)₂– ferri-clinoholmquistite—Li₂Mg₃Fe³⁺ ₂Si₈O₂₂(OH)2 - join, defined by the ^BLi^B Na_–1 exchange vector, were hydrothermally synthesized at 700°C, 0.4 GPa, NNO + 1 redox conditions. Powder XRD and SEM-EDAX showed a very high (> 90%) amphibole yield for all samples. X-ray patterns were indexed in the C2/m space group; refined cell-parameters show a linear decrease of a and as a function of chemistry. IR spectra in the OH-stretching region show four main and rather sharp bands; these are assigned to Mg and Fe²⁺ at M(1,3), and indicate that the obtained amphiboles depart from the nominal octahedral composition (^M1,3Mg₃). The IR spectra also show that there is an increasing filling-up of the A-site for increasing Na in the system (increasing solid-solution toward, arfvedsonite). Mössbauer spectra show four well-defined quadrupole doublets which are assigned to Fe³⁺ at M2 and to Fe²⁺ at M1, M3 and M4, respectively. The Fe³⁺/Fe²⁺ content derived from fitted peak areas show variable Fe³⁺ concentration along the series. Mössbauer spectra also show a distinct alteration of ⁵⁷Fe hyperfine parameters with changing Na–Li at M4. The most evident variation is observed for the quadrupole splitting of Fe³⁺ at M2, which increases by 50% from ferri-clinoholmquistite to magnesio-riebeckite; this suggest that the M2 octahedron in ferri-clinoholmquistite is much closer to the ideal geometry than the M2 octahedron in magnesio-riebeckite. Mössbauer spectra show also a well-defined increase in the Fe²⁺ quadrupole splitting of the M1 and M3 octahedra, which is attributed to the Na–Li distribution at the B-sites.     

The ecological implications of a Yakutian mammoth's last meal

Part of a large male woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) was preserved in permafrost in northern Yakutia. It was radiocarbon dated to ca. 18,500 ¹⁴C yr BP (ca. 22,500 cal yr BP). Dung from the lower intestine was subjected to a multiproxy array of microscopic, chemical, and molecular techniques to reconstruct the diet, the season of death, and the paleoenvironment. Pollen and plant macro-remains showed that grasses and sedges were the main food, with considerable amounts of dwarf willow twigs and a variety of herbs and mosses. Analyses of 110-bp fragments of the plastid rbcL gene amplified from DNA and of organic compounds supplemented the microscopic identifications. Fruit-bodies of dung-inhabiting Ascomycete fungi which develop after at least one week of exposure to air were found inside the intestine. Therefore the mammoth had eaten dung. It was probably mammoth dung as no bile acids were detected among the fecal biomarkers analysed. The plant assemblage and the presence of the first spring vessels of terminal tree-rings of dwarf willows indicated that the animal died in early spring. The mammoth lived in extensive cold treeless grassland vegetation interspersed with wetter, more productive meadows. The study demonstrated the paleoecological potential of several biochemical analytical techniques.     

Deciphering the geologic memory of a Permian conglomerate of the Southern Alps by pebble <Emphasis Type="Italic">P</Emphasis>–<Emphasis Type="Italic">T</Emphasis> estimates

The volcano–clastic sequence of Trompia Valley, which caps the Tre Valli Bresciane Variscan basement (TVB), comprises the Dosso dei Galli Conglomerate (DGC), the oldest deposit containing up to metre-sized metamorphic pebbles. This Lower Permian formation of the Trompia Basin was fed by the erosion products of the Variscan chain. We used microstructural and mineral chemical data on metamorphic pebbles of the DGC to infer a quantitative tectono-thermal evolution of the eroded pre-Permian basement and to compare them with those of TVB and the surrounding Southalpine basement units (tectono-metamorphic units = TMUs). Metapelitic and metaintrusive pebbles record a polyphase metamorphism with two metamorphic re-equilibrations: the first under epidote amphibolite facies (M1, ) and the second under greenschist facies (M2) conditions. Rock types and metamorphic data largely match those of TVB basement unit. The structural and metamorphic records in the pebbles are pre-Permian, and the conglomerate matrix is non-metamorphic. The DGC deposition age (283 ± 1–280.5 ± 2 Ma) constrains the minimal exhumation age of its basement source. The lack of staurolite bearing assemblages in metamorphic pebbles suggests that the DGC basement source was already exhumed to shallow structural levels (greenschist facies conditions) before the thermal equilibration consequent upon continental crust thickening induced by the Variscan collision.