The Cauvery Shear Zone, Southern Granulite Terrain, India: A crustal-scale flower structure

The Cauvery Shear Zone (CSZ) is a crustal-scale shear system within the Southern Granulite Terrain along the southern margin of the Archaean Dharwar craton. Structural interpretation of satellite data and field observations reveal four major shear zones within the CSZ system. They show dextral shear kinematics synchronous with a major Neoproterozoic tectono-metamorphic event (D2) associated with intracrustal melting and migmatisation. The disposition, geometry and contemporaneity of shear fabrics of the CSZ system are modelled in terms of a crustal-scale flower structure akin to transpressional and collisional orogens. In the light of recent seismic evidence for a displaced Moho structure and a mid- to lower-crustal low velocity zone, the flower structure across the CSZ may extend to mantle depths.     

TRANSALP—deep crustal Vibroseis and explosive seismic profiling in the Eastern Alps

The TRANSALP consortium, comprising institutions from Italy, Austria and Germany, carried out deep seismic reflection measurements in the Eastern Alps between Munich and Venice in 1998, 1999 and 2001. In order to complement each other in resolution and depth range, the Vibroseis technique was combined with simultaneous explosive source measurements. Additionally, passive cross-line recording provided three-dimensional control and alternative north–south sections. Profits were obtained by the combination of the three methods in sectors or depths where one method alone was less successful.The TRANSALP sections clearly image a thin-skinned wedge of tectonic nappes at the northern Alpine front zone, unexpected graben or half-graben structures within the European basement, and, thick-skinned back-thrusting in the southern frontal zone beneath the Dolomite Mountains. A bi-vergent structure at crustal scale is directed from the Alpine axis to the external parts. The Tauern Window obviously forms the hanging wall ramp anticline above a southward dipping, deep reaching reflection pattern interpreted as a tectonic ramp along which the Penninic units of the Tauern Window have been up-thrusted.The upper crystalline crust appears generally transparent. The lower crust in the European domain is characterized by a 6–7 km thick laminated structure. On the Adriatic side the lower crust displays a much thicker or twofold reflective pattern. The crustal root at about 55 km depth is shifted around 50 km to the south with respect to the main Alpine crest.     

Alpine reworking of Ordovician protoliths in the Western Carpathians: Geochronological and geochemical data on the Muráñ Gneiss Complex, Slovakia

Magmatic protoliths of Ordovician age have been identified in the metamorphic rocks of the Muráñ Gneiss Complex, Veporic Unit (Central Western Carpathians). Vapor digestion single zircon U–Pb dating yields an intrusion age of 464 ± 35 Ma (upper intercept) for the granite protolith. A lower intercept age of 88 ± 40 Ma records amphibolite-facies metamorphic overprint in the Cretaceous, during the Alpine orogeny. Geochemical and isotopic data suggest crustal origin of the orthogneiss. Nd_initial are between − 2.6 and − 5.0 and T_DM^Nd between 1.3 and 1.5 Ga (two-step approach). ⁸⁷Sr / ⁸⁶Sr_initial ratios vary between 0.7247 and 0.7120, and a steep REE pattern further constrains the crustal affinity of these rocks. Associated amphibolite bodies have Nd_initial values of 6.5, ⁸⁷Sr / ⁸⁶Sr_initial ratio of 0.7017, and a flat REE pattern. They are interpreted as MORB derived metabasites. Whole-rock Pb isotope analyses define a linear array in a ²⁰⁶Pb / ²⁰⁴Pb vs. ²⁰⁷Pb / ²⁰⁴Pb diagram with an age of ca. 134 Ma, consistent with intense Alpine metamorphism and deformation.

These basement rocks of the Central Western Carpathians are interpreted as Ordovician magmatic rocks intruded at an active margin of Gondwana. They represent the eastern prolongation of Cambro–Ordovician units of the European Variscides, which were part of the peri-Gondwana superterrane and accreted to Laurussia during the Variscan orogeny. Variscan metamorphic overprint is not recorded by the isotopic data of the Muráñ Gneiss Complex. Alpine metamorphism is the most dominant overprint.     

造山作用概念和分类

本文从造山作用的特征标志出发讨论了Sengor造山带定义的缺陷， 总结了造山作用的六条特征标志，并给出了造山作用新的定义。该定义包括了造山作用的起因、特征标志和大地构造背景。评述了造山带陆内、陆缘、陆间三分法方案的不足之处和剪压造山带的单独设类问题，提出了造山带板内、俯冲、碰撞三分方案。针对碰撞造山带，笔者在总结探讨现有分类方案的优点的基础上， 提出碰撞造山带陆陆碰撞、碰撞增生、弧陆碰撞和无大陆型碰撞造山带四分法方案，其中无大陆型碰撞造山带是描述陆壳物质形成初期计体拼合聚合过程的新类型。     

Paleomagnetic dating of Alleghanian orogenesis and mineralisation in the Mascot–Jefferson City zinc district of East Tennessee, USA

The Mascot–Jefferson City (M-JC) Mississippi Valley-type (MVT) deposits are in the Valley and Ridge province of the Appalachian orogen in East Tennessee. They have been a major source of zinc for the USA but their age is uncertain and thus their genesis controversial. About 10 specimens from each of 37 sites have been analysed paleomagnetically using alternating field and thermal step demagnetisation methods and saturation isothermal remanence methods. The sites sample limestones, dolostones, breccia clasts and sphalerite–dolomite MVT mineralisation from mines in the Lower Ordovician Kingsport and Mascot formations of the Knox Group. The characteristic remanent magnetisation (ChRM) is carried by magnetite in the limestones, by both magnetite and pyrrhotite in the dolostones and by pyrrhotite preferentially to magnetite in the mineralisation. Mineralized sites have a more intense ChRM than non-mineralised, indicating that the mineralising and magnetisation event are coeval. Paleomagnetic breccia tests on clasts at the three sites are negative, indicating that their ChRM is post-depositional remagnetisation, and a paleomagnetic fold test is negative, indicating that the ChRM is a remagnetisation, and a post-dates peak Alleghanian deformation. The unit mean ChRM direction for the: (a) limestones gives a paleopole at 129°E, 12°N (d_p=18°, d_m=26°, N=3), indicating diagenesis formed a secondary chemical remanent magnetisation during the Late Ordovician–Early Silurian; (b) dolomitic limestones and dolostone host rocks gives a paleopole at 125.3°E, 31.9°N (d_p=5.3°, d_m=9.4°, N=7), recording regional dolomitisation at 334±14 Ma (1σ); and (c) MVT mineralisation gives a paleopole at 128.7°E, 34.0°N (d_p=2.4°, d_m=4.4°, N=25), showing that it acquired its primary chemical remanence at 316±8 Ma (1σ). The mineralisation is interpreted to have formed from hydrothermal fluid flow, either gravity or tectonically driven, after peak Alleghanian deformation in eastern Tennessee with regional dolomitisation of the host rocks occurring as part of a continuum during the 20 Ma prior to and during peak deformation.