Manganoan garnet rocks associated with the Broken Hill Pb–Zn–Ag orebody, Australia

Summary The Palaeoproterozoic Broken Hill Pb–Zn–Ag stratiform orebody is intimately associated with manganoan garnet-bearing rocks. On stratigraphic and chemical grounds it is argued that garnet-rich metasediments below, equivalent to and above massive sulphide were hydrothermal precipitates. Other manganoan garnet rocks formed during pre-metamorphic hydrothermal alteration, syn-metamorphic dehydration and reaction of manganese with prograde pelitic rocks, reaction between cataclastic manganese-bearing sulphide rocks injected along axial planes, shears and faults and pelitic wall rocks and reaction between dolerite dykes and sulphide rocks.     

The Cone-in-Cone Structure and Its Origin

Morphostructural investigation of carbonate cone-in-cone formations allows to conclude that they belong to self-organizing (dissipative, according to I. Prigogine's terminology) systems of the geological past formed in a thermogradient field at the expense of energy of heat and mass transfer (Prigogine and Stengers, 1984). First, the fluid-convective metasomatic hypothesis unites and reconciles the most well-known hypotheses that previously seemed to be incompatible and transforms them to rather consistent particular cases of a more intricate multistage geological phenomenon. Second, it helps to identify the morphologically and genetically analogous noncarbonate structures that mimic biogenic ones. The probable indicative role of cone-in-cone structure in the mapping of fluid-conducting systems is a consequence of the proposed hypothesis.     

The Skaergaard Layered Series. Part VI. Excluded Trace Elements

In contrast to the smooth trends of major elements and mineralcompositions, the excluded trace elements in the SkaergaardLayered Series have an irregular distribution that does notconform to the normal trends of Rayleigh-type fractionation.Their concentrations are about constant or even decline throughthe Lower and Middle Zones before increasing sharply to reachmaximum concentrations 100–200 m above the Sandwich Horizon.As in the case of included elements, the relative concentrationsof excluded elements in coexisting phases deviate widely fromthose predicted by experimentally determined partition coefficientsunder presumed magmatic conditions. This is seen most clearlyin the immiscible melanogranophyres and conjugate ferrogabbros.Although the major elements conform to the experimentally determinedrelations for immiscible liquids, the trace elements do not;they follow a totally independent trend. The abrupt increasein the concentrations of excluded elements in the upper partof the intrusion could plausibly be attributed to an additionof new magma or to a density inversion that resulted in upwardmigration of a late liquid or fluid, but these possibilitiesare inconsistent with the compositional and spatial relationsof the upper parts of the intrusion. Although a late residualliquid certainly migrated upward, the most likely explanationfor the observed distribution of excluded elements is that thepartition coefficients were altered by volatile components,which gradually increased during the early stages of crystallizationthen began to exsolve near the top of the Middle Zone. KEY WORDS: igneous differentiation; Skaergaard intrusion     

ELF propagation parameters for uniform models of the Earth–ionosphere waveguide

Uniform models for the Earth–ionosphere cavity are considered with particular attention to the physical properties of the ionosphere for the extremely low frequency (ELF) range. Two consistent features have long been recognized for the range: the presence of two distinct altitude layers of maximum energy dissipation within the lower ionosphere, and a “knee”-like change in the vertical conductivity profile representing a transition in dominance from ion-dominated to electron-dominated conductivity. A simplified two-exponential version of the Greifinger and Greifinger (1978) technique widely used in ELF work identifies two slopes in the conductivity profile and, providing accurate results in the ELF communication band (45–75 Hz), simulates too flat a frequency dependence of the quality factor within the Schumann resonance frequency range (5–40 Hz). The problem is traced to the upward migration, with frequency increasing, of the lower dissipation layer through the “knee” region resulting in a pronounced decrease of the effective scale height for conductivity. To overcome this shortcoming of the two-exponential approximation and still retain valuable model analyticity, a more general approach (but still based on the Greifinger and Greifinger formalism) is presented in the form of a “knee” model whose predictions for the modal frequencies, the wave phase velocities and the quality factors reasonably represent observations in the Schumann resonance frequency range.