Late Quaternary landscapes in Central Australia: sedimentary history and palaeoecology of Puritjarra rock shelter

Puritjarra rock shelter provides a long record of late Quaternary vegetation in the Australian arid zone. Analysis of the sedimentary history of this rock shelter is combined with reanalysis of charcoal and phytolith records to provide a first‐order picture of changing landscapes in western Central Australia. These show a landscape responding to increasing aridity from 45 ka with deflation of clay‐rich red palaeosols (<45 ka) and sharp declines in grassland and other vegetation at 40–36 ka, and at the beginning of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) (24 ka). Vegetation in the catchment of the rock shelter recovered after 15 ka with expansion of both acacia woodland and spinifex grasslands, registering stronger summer rainfall in the interior of the continent. By 8.3 ka re‐vegetation of local palaeosols and dunes had choked off sediment supply to the rock shelter and the character of the sediments changed abruptly. Poaceae values peaked at 5.8 ka, suggesting the early–mid Holocene climatic optimum in Central Australia is bracketed between 8.3 and 5.8 ka. Local vegetation was disrupted in the late Holocene with a sharp decline in Poaceae at 3.8 ka, coinciding with an abrupt intensification of ENSO. Local grasslands recovered over the next two millennia and by 1.5 ka the modern vegetation appears to have become established. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Theory of stability, and regulation and control of ecological system in oasis

Starting with analysis on the evolving course of oasis and the characteristics and evolution of transitional zone between oasis and desert, in consideration of ecological elements including plant stomata resistance, area covered by vegetation, and physical elements including albedo of vegetation and bare soil, atmosphere temperature, and humidity, under the condition of the balance among net radiation flux, latent heat flux, and sensible heat flux, the following are calculated: temperatures of vegetation and bare soil in different conditions, as well as the evapotranspiration rate of ecosystem. Analysis on evapotranspiration rate indicates that it depends on both the climate of environment and the physiological and ecological conditions of plants. On certain conditions, the evapotranspiration rate of transitional zone between oasis and desert (i.e. area covered by vegetation less than 20%), in some parameter domains, appears in bifurcation or multiequilibrium state. Meanwhile, in such area, ecosystem is extremely unstable. Any minor change to the balance will cause either increase or reduction of area covered by vegetation in ecosystem, on the basis of discussion on the emergency of these phenomena. This paper is attempting to propose an effective way of destruction and rebuilt ecosystem in transitional zone. The way is to control the evaporation of plant through selecting anti-drought country plant with big stomata resistance, and modify the roughness of the underlying surface in ecosystem by establishing rational interspace structure of plant community, so as to put the degenerative ecosystem into the natural succession track. This primary theory is being verified through observation and analysis on historical data.     

Deep Processes of Basin Evolution:A Case Study of the Southern Songliao Basin and Adjacent Area,NE China in Mesozoic-Cenozoic

1IntroductionOne of the key factors related to basin geody-namics is deep process controlling formation and evolution of sedimentary basin. Depth and tempera-ture of asthenosphere,existence of mantle plume,occurrence of mantle melting,and amounts of melts under depressurization during thinning of lithosphere are controlling factors influenced formation and characteristics of extensional basin directly (Li,1994). Rifting is probably governed by frictional forces exerted on the base of litho…     

利用地震矩张量反演鲜水河断裂带现今运动学特征

本文探讨了利用地震矩反演断裂形变带运动学参数的基本理论和方法，将其初步应用于鲜水河断裂形变带变形分析和运动机制的研究。结果表明，鲜水河断裂带呈现出走向拉伸、倾向压缩的形变格局，由地震矩反演的断裂带剪切形变速率（１０．９ｍｍ／ａ）与用地质学估算方法（１７ｍｍ／ａ）和现今地壳形变测量（８ｍｍ／ａ）的结果相当。同时，反演出的应变主方向能解释鲜水河断裂现今活动分段性特征以及多种滑动方式共存的现状，从而证明该方法是目前研究区域运动学问题切实有效的手段之一。     

太子河流域辽阳—本溪间的■类动物群

太子河流域西部竹蜓类动物群，以本溪—牛心台地区为最发育，一般可划分为一个共存延限带，一个组合带，后者又可进一步划分为３个组合亚带。ⅡＦｕｓｕｌｉｎａ－Ｆｕｓｕｌｉｎｅｌａ组合带３Ｆｕｓｕｌｉｎａｃｙｌｉｎｄｒｉｃａ－Ｆ．ｑｕａｓｉｃｙｌｉｎｄｒｉｃａ组合亚带２Ｆｕｓｕｌｉｎｅｌａｐｒｏｖｅｃｔｕ－Ｆｕｓｕｌｉｎａｐｓｅｕｄｏｋｏｎｎｏｉ组合亚带１Ｆｕｓｕｌｉｎａｓｃｈｅｌｗｉｅｎｉ－Ｆ．ｍａｙｉｅｎｓｉｓ组合亚带ⅠＰｒｏｆｕｓｕｌｉｎｅｌａｐａｒｖａ－Ｅｏｓｔａｆｅｌａｓｕｂｓｏｌａｎａ共存延限带Ｐｒｏｆｕｓｕｌｉｎｅｌａｐａｒｖａ系作者等研究辽南竹蜓类并建带的带分子，Ｅｏｓｔｕｆｆｅｌａｓｕｂｓｏｌａｎａ为盛金章教授建立的辽东本溪群下部竹蜓带的带分子，时代为中石炭世早期。Ｆｕｓｕｌｉｎａ－Ｆｕｓｕｌｉｎｅｌａ组合带代表本区及东北南部最发育的竹蜓类动物群。该带属于中石炭世中—晚期，也是太子河流域最大海侵期。以上二个竹蜓类生物带总体应属于Ｍｏｓｃｏｖｉａｎ阶，时代为中石炭世。     

宁夏香山-天景山弧形断裂带新活动特征及1709年中卫南71/2级地震形变带

本文根据野外地质填图和水系位移测量结果,论述了香山-天景山弧形断裂带新生代有两个不同活动性质的阶段,即早期阶段的强烈挤压和晚期阶段的左旋走滑兼挤压。分析、讨论了不同活动阶段的时间界限和转变原因。指出了1709年中卫南71/_2级地震形变带的表现形式、延伸范围     

First seismic record for intra-arc strike-slip tectonics along the Liquiñe-Ofqui fault zone at the obliquely convergent plate margin of the southern Andes

A temporal seismic network recorded local seismicity along a 130 km long segment of the transpressional dextral strike-slip Liquiñe-Ofqui fault zone (LOFZ) in southern Chile. Seventy five shallow crustal events with magnitudes up to M_w 3.8 and depths shallower than 25 km were observed in an 11-month period mainly occurring in different clusters. Those clusters are spatially related to the LOFZ, to the volcanoes Chaitén, Michinmahuida and Corcovado, and to active faulting on secondary faults. Further activity along the LOFZ is indicated by individual events located in direct vicinity of the surface expression of the LOFZ. Focal mechanisms were calculated using deviatoric moment tensor inversion of body wave amplitude spectra which mostly yield strike-slip mechanisms indicating a NE–SW direction of the P-axis for the LOFZ at this latitude. The seismic activity reveals the present-day activity of the fault zone. The recent M_w 6.2 event near Puerto Aysén, Southern Chile at 45.4°S on April 21, 2007 shows that the LOFZ is also capable of producing large magnitude earthquakes and therefore imposing significant seismic hazard to this region.     

A seismic source zone model for the seismic hazard assessment of the Italian territory

We designed a new seismic source model for Italy to be used as an input for country-wide probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA) in the frame of the compilation of a new national reference map.

We started off by reviewing existing models available for Italy and for other European countries, then discussed the main open issues in the current practice of seismogenic zoning.

The new model, termed ZS9, is largely based on data collected in the past 10 years, including historical earthquakes and instrumental seismicity, active faults and their seismogenic potential, and seismotectonic evidence from recent earthquakes. This information allowed us to propose new interpretations for poorly understood areas where the new data are in conflict with assumptions made in designing the previous and widely used model ZS4.

ZS9 is made out of 36 zones where earthquakes with M_w > = 5 are expected. It also assumes that earthquakes with M_w up to 5 may occur anywhere outside the seismogenic zones, although the associated probability is rather low. Special care was taken to ensure that each zone sampled a large enough number of earthquakes so that we could compute reliable earthquake production rates.

Although it was drawn following criteria that are standard practice in PSHA, ZS9 is also innovative in that every zone is characterised also by its mean seismogenic depth (the depth of the crustal volume that will presumably release future earthquakes) and predominant focal mechanism (their most likely rupture mechanism). These properties were determined using instrumental data, and only in a limited number of cases we resorted to geologic constraints and expert judgment to cope with lack of data or conflicting indications. These attributes allow ZS9 to be used with more accurate regionalized depth-dependent attenuation relations, and are ultimately expected to increase significantly the reliability of seismic hazard estimates.     

安徽省黄山地区唐家坞组生物地层

安徽省南部黄山市刘村一带唐家坞组的时代以往归为晚志留世,新近在唐家坞组中采获腕足类、瓣鳃类、腹足类等多门类化石,并首次采获胞石、鹦鹉螺等化石,其中胞石Conochitina(Densichitana)dens的时代为兰多维列世末至文洛克世初期,含这些化石的层位相当于秀山动物群的层位。结合地质情况分析,唐家坞组时限主要属于早志留世。     

鱼卡煤田大煤沟组高分辨率层序地层特征及聚煤规律

利用高分辨率层序地层学理论和技术方法,综合地震、测井、岩芯和煤质资料对柴达木盆地北缘鱼卡煤田中下侏罗统大煤沟组地层河湖三角洲沉积体系进行高分辨率层序地层学分析,从中识别出短期、中期、长期3个级别的基准面旋回层序,划分出向上"变深"非对称型、向上"变浅"非对称型及对称型3种短期基准面旋回基本结构类型。依据等时地层对比法则进行不同级次基准面旋回层序的联井对比,建立了大煤沟组的等时地层格架,在等时地层格架内进行了煤层对比,并在等时地层格架内分析了聚煤规律。