Middle to early Late Ordovician hydrothermal veining in the Molong Volcanic Belt,northeastern Lachlan Fold Belt: Sedimentological evidence

Detrital volcanic and vein quartz, accompanied by felsic volcanic debris, occur as minor constituents in the Ordovician subduction‐related mafic volcanics of the Molong Volcanic Belt. In the western province of the Molong Volcanic Belt, detrital quartz is present in the three episodes of the mafic Volcanics. Volcanic quartz occurs in allochthonous limestone blocks in the Bendigonian Hensleigh Siltstone overlying the Mitchell Formation. The second volcanic episode (the Fairbridge Volcanics) commenced after a hiatus of approximately 20 million years and lasted around 10 million years from Darriwilian to Gisbornian time. Locally derived vein quartz, volcanic quartz and felsic detritus are concentrated at the bases of autochthonous Wahringa and Yuranigh Limestone Members of the volcanics and are extensive and abundant in basal beds of the regional Eastonian limestone body that transgressed over an eroded volcanic centre at Cargo. This early Eastonian debris, deposited early in an 8 million‐year volcanic hiatus preceding the final Ordovician Bolindian volcanism, establishes a pre‐Eastonian age for mineralisation at Cargo. It is inferred that the pauses in volcanism were preceded by magmatic fractionation, intrusion and hydrothermal activity and followed by erosion, subsidence and deposition of autochthonous limestones. Minor occurrences of vein and volcanic quartz are found in Bolindian volcanogenic sediments of the third volcanic phase. It is concluded that hydrothermal vein formation (and mineralisation by inference) was associated with pauses in volcanic activity throughout the Middle to early Late Ordovician over a wide area in the western province, culminating in the mineralisation at Cargo and Copper Hill near Molong. Volcanism in the eastern province of the Molong Volcanic Belt was continuous from at least Darriwilian to latest Ordovician time. Here, detrital hydrothermal vein quartz and volcanic quartz and felsic detritus are distributed through late Middle and early Late Ordovician turbidites of the Weemalla Formation. The possible existence of cycles in the source area like those of the Fairbridge Volcanics is masked by the distal nature of these deposits. Vein formation occurred in both provinces from late Middle Ordovician to early Late Ordovician, long before the formation of the world‐class mineral deposit at Cadia associated with the latest Ordovician Cadia Monzonite.     

滇西昌宁─孟连带南部地层地质问题

滇西孟连以南，整合于南段组浊积岩之上的拉巴群硅质岩含晚二叠世早期放射虫化石，南段组时代不仅限于石炭纪，可能延入二叠纪。二者为晚古生代思茅地块的外陆坡沉积。其西面的南基河杂岩（新名）由层序混乱的晚古生代硅质岩、泥岩和少量砂岩、玄武岩构成。放射虫化石证据表明，硅质岩时代不仅限于晚泥盆世－早二叠世，还延入晚二叠世，而有的砂岩时代为早石炭世，它们是经过强烈构造变动的古特提斯洋的沉积记录。昌宁－孟连带向南可能延至泰国北部的清迈带，而非东北部的难河带。     

造山带与岩石圈演化动力学研究述评

本文综述指出：深部过程，可能导致放射性元素在地幔或下地壳的某些部位聚结而产生强烈的核反应，致使下地壳加热和上地壳的快速抬升和伸展垮塌，产生地震、火山作用、岩浆作用，形成山脉。通过对来自地球内部的α─粒子辐射监测，有可能对毁灭性地震作出预报。     

博格达山晚古生代坳拉谷(Aulacogen)的初步研究

博格达地区在晚古生代不是与哈尔里克相联的岛弧,而是坳拉谷.它发育较完整的滨浅海→陆棚→陆坡→坡角→盆地平原相的沉积相序.建造类型和充填序列与国内外坳拉谷很相似,而与岛弧建造相差甚远.早期具多旋回的火山喷发,中期发育多种重力流沉积组分,晚期出现复理石和磨拉石建造.东与兴蒙大洋相联,西端伸入准噶尔小板块内部.从中泥盆世开始由巴里坤一带逐渐向乌鲁木齐地区发育.     

新疆古地磁研究及几个地质构造问题探讨

通过对塔里木、准噶尔、伊犁、昆仑山等地区古地磁研究获得了大量数据,结合磁性地层、古生物、沉积相等综合分析,对塔里木地块构造演化、新疆晚古生代构造分区划分、伊犁地块、天山板块等几个地质构造问题进行了探讨.     

Albian and Cenomanian planktic Foraminiferida from the Trawne Beds (Pieniny Klippen Belt,Polish Carpathians)

Eighteen Albian and Cenomanian planktic Foraminiferida from the Pieniny Klippen Belt of Poland are discussed. A local biostratigraphic zonation (six zones) is proposed and certain problems of palaeoecology are reviewed. The lithostratigraphical element is the so-called Trawne Beds, a Cretaceous flysch in the Pieniny Klippen Belt.     

Andean evolution at the Guañacos and Chos Malal fold and thrust belts (36°30′–37°s)

The Andes between 36°30′ and 37°S represent a Cretaceous fold and thrust belt strongly reactivated in the late Miocene. Most of the features that absorbed Neogene shortening were already uplifted in the late Cretaceous, as revealed by field mapping and confirmed by previous fission track analysis. This Andean section is formed by two sectors: a western-inner sector generated by the closure of the upper Oligocene-lower Miocene intra-arc Cura Mallín basin between the middle and late Miocene (Guañacos fold and thrust belt), and an eastern-outer sector, where late Triassic-early Jurassic extensional depocenters were exhumed in two discrete phases of contraction, in the latest early Cretaceous and late Miocene to the Present, respectively (Chos Malal fold and thrust belt). Late Miocene deformation has not homogeneously reactivated Cretaceous compressive structures, being minimal south of 37°30′S through the eastern-outer sector (southern continuation of the Chos Malal fold and thrust belt). The reason for such an inhomogeneous deformational evolution seems to be related to the development of a late Miocene shallow subduction regime between 34°30′ and 37°45′S, as it was proposed in previous studies. This shallow subduction zone is evidenced by the eastward expansion of the arc that was accompanied by the eastern displacement of the orogenic front at these latitudes. As a result, the Cretaceous fold and thrust belt were strongly reactivated north of 37°30′S producing the major topographic break along the Southern Central Andes.     

Shear-zone controlled basins in the Blouberg area, Northern Province, South Africa: syn- and post-tectonic sedimentation relating to ca. 2.0 Ga reactivation of the Limpopo Belt

The extent of the deposition and of the preservation of the Blouberg Formation and Waterberg Group was at least partially controlled by brittle reactivation along the Palala Shear Zone. The Palala Shear Zone in the Blouberg area (Northern Province, South Africa) is characterised by granulite-grade gneiss, and formed by sinistral transpressional collision between the Southern Marginal Zone (Kaapvaal Craton) and the Central Zone of the Limpopo Belt. The Limpopo collision is thought to have occurred either at 2.0 Ga or at 2.7 Ga with reactivation at 2.0 Ga. Deposition of the Blouberg Formation was characterised by syn-sedimentary tectonism, which is reflected by a sudden upward coarsening in sedimentary rocks, and by the presence of a strongly folded and thrusted lower member. Bedding orientations and slickenside lineation orientations suggest that vergence was towards the south, and such a tectonism can be inferred to have produced a highland area to the north, bound on the southern margin by the southern strand of the Melinda Fault. The presence of an inferred northerly upland area is supported by palaeocurrent directions and the preservational extent of the Setlaole and Makgabeng Formations of the Waterberg Group (post-Blouberg Formation). The extent and stratigraphy of the overlying Mogalakwena Formation suggests that these strata onlapped northwards over the denuding highlands. Younger Sibasa basalts of the Soutpansberg Group have been dated at ca. 1.85 Ga. Blouberg and Waterberg strata can therefore be interpreted as syn- and post-tectonic sedimentary rocks, respectively, following a ca. 2.0 reactivation event along the Palala Shear Zone. It is difficult to reconcile the succession of geological events at Blouberg with a ca. 2.0 Ga Limpopo orogeny, and thus sedimentary strata in the study area support a 2.7 Ga date for Limpopo collision, with syn-Blouberg tectonism relating to ca. 2.0 reactivation within the previously assembled Limpopo Belt.     

Quantitative assessment of future development of cooper/silver resources in the Kootenai National Forest,Idaho/Montana: Part I—Estimation of the copper and silver endowments

Faced with an ever-increasing diversity of demand for the use of public lands, managers and planners are turning more often to a multiple-use approach to meet those demands. This approach requires the uses to be mutually compatible and to utilize the more valuable attributes or resource values of the land. Therefore, it is imperative that planners be provided with all available information on attribute and resource values in a timely fashion and in a format that facilitates a comparative evaluation.The Kootenai National Forest administration enlisted the U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Bureau of Mines to perform a quantitative assessment of future copper/silver production potential within the forest from sediment-hosted copper deposits in the Revett Formation that are similar to those being mined at the Troy Mine near Spar Lake. The U.S. Geological Survey employed a quantitative assessment technique that compared the favorable host terrane in the Kootenai area with worldwide examples of known sediment-hosted copper deposits. The assessment produced probabilistic estimates of the number of undiscovered deposits that may be present in the area and of the copper and silver endowment that might be contained in them.Results of the assessment suggest that the copper/silver deposit potential is highest in the southwestern one-third of the forest. In this area there is an estimated 50 percent probability of at least 50 additional deposits occurring mostly within approximately 260,000 acres where the Revett Formation is thought to be present in the subsurface at depths of less than 1,500 meters. A Monte Carlo type simulation using data on the grade and tonnage characteristics of other known silver-rich, sediment-hosted copper deposits predicts a 50 percent probability that these undiscovered deposits will contain at least 19 million tonnes of copper and 100,000 tonnes of silver. Combined with endowments estimated for identified, but not thoroughly explored deposits, and deposits that might also occur in the remaining area of the forest, the endowment potential increases to 23 million tonnes of copper and 190,000 tonnes of silver.