Paleo-oil reservoir pyrolysis and gas release in the Yangtze Block imply an alternative mechanism for the Late Permian Crisis

The causes of the global mass extinction that occurred around the Permian–Triassic boundary have been widely studied through the geological record and in various locations. The results show that volcanic activity was a key factor in initiating the crisis during the Late Permian. Compared to other thermal events triggered by volcanic activity, pyrolysis of petroleum in Pre-Permian reservoirs has rarely been suggested as a significant source of the greenhouse gases that caused the mass extinction. In this study, geochemical analysis is carried out of a huge paleo-oil reservoir in the Yangtze Block (YB), South China. The detection of mineral inclusions and pyrobitumens is evidence of rapid pyrolysis of accumulated oil in the Ediacaran reservoir. New evidence from hydrothermal minerals and the presence of domain mesophase in the pyrobitumen suggest that the pyrolysis process occurred abruptly and that greenhouse gases were rapidly released through venting pipes. The dating of such a complex geological event in this old and deeply buried reservoir is inevitably difficult and potentially unreliable. However, cross-validation of the multiple evidence sources, including hydrothermal minerals and domain mesophase, indicates that the rapid oil pyrolysis must have been driven by a major thermal event. Reconstruction of burial and thermal histories suggests that the thermal event was most likely to have been triggered by the Emeishan Large Igneous Province (ELIP), which was in a period of significant volcanic activity during the Late Permian. Massive volumes of gases, including methane, carbon dioxide, and possibly hydrogen sulfide, were released, causing a significant increase in greenhouse gases that may have contributed to global warming and the resulting mass extinction during the Late Permian Crisis (LPC).     

The Early Valanginian ammonite, brachiopod and crustacean fauna of the Mecsek Mts. and its relationships with the embryonic shallow water hydrothermal vent at Zeng?várkony (Mecsek Mts., South Hungary)

Early Cretaceous development of the Mecsek Mts. (South Hungary) is characterized by continental rifting that produced mixed volcano-sedimentary rocks in the Tihonian/Berriasian and built up a volcanic edifice in the earliest Cretaceous of ankaramite-alkaline basalts. During the Valanginian, marl sedimentation occurred in the basinal part containing rich pelagic fauna dominated by ammonites. Beside phylloceratids, lytoceratids and haploceratids, Kilianella roubaudiana, K. lucensis, Sarasinella eucyrta, Thurmanniceras pertransiens, Th. (Clavithurmannia) foraticostata, Busnardoites campylotoxus, Olcostephanus drumensis, O. densicostatus, and Sabbaiceras stefanescui are indicating the Early and Late Valanginian Thurmanniceras pertransiens, Busnardoites campylotoxus and Saynoceras verrucosum zones. The Early Valanginian is also supported by Calpionellites darderi indicating the calpionellid “E” zone. The marl sequence contains a turbidite bed with rich fauna of shallow marine origin from the volcanic slope of lagoonal, reef, and tidal environs, however it contains metasomatized limestone olistoliths of different origin. Source of these olistoliths is the near iron-ore deposit, which is considered an embryonic shallow water hydrothermal vent. It includes a remarkable fauna of rich crustacean coprolite ichnospecies of Favreina dispentochetarius, F. hexaochetarius, F. octoochetarius, Palaxius decaochetarius, P. tetraochetarius, P. triochetarius. In the neighbourhood of the embryonic vent, a remarkable megafauna occurs, which is an almost monospecific brachiopod fauna dominated by Lacunosella hoheneggeri. Other brachiopods as Nucleata veronica, Moutonithyris moutoniana, Karadagithyris sp., and Zittelina pinguicula also occur as stray individuals. Together with benthic megafauna, nektonic elements as Nautiloidea gen. et sp. ind, phylloceratid- and lytoceratid ammonites and echinoid spines of Balanocidaris rysacantha occur.     

大气降水热液成矿——西秦岭某硅、灰、泥岩型铀矿床成矿模式探讨

西秦岭某硅、灰、泥岩型层控铀矿床是在矿源层(中志留统)的基础上,由地下水热液渗滤改造而成。铀的工业富集发生在矿源层褶皱成陆之后,成矿高峰则发生在中、新生代交替时期。成矿溶液是受大气降水补给的地下水热液;成矿物质主要来自矿源层本身。矿源层长期遭受地下水热液作用,溶液中大量的铀酰离子形成稳定的碳酸铀酰络合物,并被运移至岩性和构造的圈闭部位,通过吸附和共沉淀等作用富集,或通过还原、水解和过饱和沉淀等作用形成沥青铀矿或再生铀黑。该层控铀矿床的整个成矿过程具有典型的逐级增量特点,属于塔式累积成矿的基本模式,后生富集是成矿的关键。     

云南景谷岔河铜矿控矿因素

芒亨河断裂的次级断裂是主要控矿构造,含矿围岩为上三叠统小定西组(T3xd)富钠质安山岩、玄武岩。受构造、层位、碎屑粒度的制约。     

Contrasting hydrological response of coastal and desert biocrusts

Biocrusts abound in southern Israel, covering the Hallamish dune field near Nizzana (NIZ) in the Negev (mean annual precipitation of 95 mm) and the coast of Nizzanim (NIM) near Ashdod (mean annual precipitation of 500 mm). While the hydrological response of the NIZ crust to natural rain events was thoroughly investigated, no data is available on the hydrological response of the NIM crust. Runoff was monitored in runoff plots during the years 2005–2008, and in addition, sprinkling experiments were carried out on NIM and NIZ crusts. For the evaluation of the possible factors that may control runoff initiation, fine content of the parent material, crust thickness, compressional strength, hydrophobicity, surface microrelief, organic matter, biomass (chlorophyll a and total carbohydrates) and the crust's species composition of NIM were studied and compared to that of NIZ. The data showed that in comparison to the NIZ crust that readily generated runoff, no runoff was produced by the NIM crust. This was so despite the fact that (1) Microculeus vaginatus predominated in both crusts, (2) the substantially higher rain intensities in NIM, (3) the greater thickness and higher chlorophyll content and (4) the lower microrelief at NIM in comparison to NIZ. The lack of runoff in NIM was explained by its low amounts of exopolysaccharides that did not suffice to affectively clog the surface and in turn to facilitate runoff initiation. The absence of runoff and its consequences on the NIM ecosystem are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analytical solution to 1D coupled water infiltration and deformation in unsaturated soils

An analytical solution to 1D coupled water infiltration and deformation is derived using a Fourier integral transform. Exponential functional forms are used to represent the hydraulic conductivity–pore‐water pressure relationship and the soil‐water characteristic curve. Fredlund's incremental‐linear constitutive model for unsaturated soils is adopted. The analytical solution considers arbitrary initial pore‐water pressure distributions and flux and pressure boundary conditions. The corresponding analytical solutions to coupled steady‐state problems are also obtained. The analytical solutions demonstrate that the coupling of seepage and deformation plays an important role in water infiltration in unsaturated soils. In the early stages of infiltration, the difference between uncoupled and coupled conditions becomes marked over time, and in late stages, the difference caused by the coupling effects diminishes toward the steady state. The difference between the uncoupled and coupled conditions increases with decreasing desaturation coefficient (α). Pore‐water pressure or deformation changes caused by the coupling effects are mainly controlled by the degree of soil volume change due to a change in soil suction (H). The smaller the absolute value of H, the greater the effect of coupling on the infiltration and deformation. The ratio of rainfall intensity to saturated permeability (q/k_s) also has a strong influence on the coupled seepage and deformation. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

云南广南县老寨湾金矿地质特征及找矿标志

广南县老寨湾金矿位于滇、黔、桂“金三角”重要成矿区带上,金矿体矿体呈似层状赋存于断层构造破碎带或层间构造破碎带中,构造控矿明显。矿体围岩均为下泥盆统坡松冲组第一段(D1ps1)硅化石英砂岩;矿床成因属中-低温热液叠加改造型金矿床,断层构造、硅化等矿化蚀变及地球化学异常是重要的找矿标志。     

Efficient stochastic analysis of unsaturated slopes subjected to various rainfall intensities and patterns

Rainfall infiltration poses a disastrous threat to the slope stability in many regions around the world. This paper proposes an extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost)-based stochastic analysis framework to estimate the rainfall-induced slope failure probability. An unsaturated slope under rainfall infiltration in spatially varying soils is selected in this study to investigate the influences of the spatial variability of soil properties (including effective cohesion c′, effective friction angle φ′ and saturated hydraulic conductivity k_s), as well as rainfall intensity and rainfall pattern on the slope failure probability. Results show that the proposed framework in this study is capable of computing the failure probability with accuracy and high efficiency. The spatial variability of k_s cannot be overlooked in the reliability analysis. Otherwise, the rainfall-induced slope failure probability will be underestimated. It is found that the rainfall intensity and rainfall pattern have significant effect on the probability of failure. Moreover, the failure probabilities under various rainfall intensities and patterns can be easily obtained with the aid of the proposed framework, which can provide timely guidance for the landslide emergency management departments.     

Fluid flow patterns and infiltration isograds in melilite marbles from the Bufa del Diente contact metamorphic aureole, north-east Mexico

In the inner aureole of the Bufa del Diente alkali syenite (north-east Mexico), thin calcareous argillite bands horizontally embedded in impure marbles acted as contact-metamorphic aquifers for hypersaline brines of magmatic origin. Thick-bedded marbles were largely impervious. From 180 m up to the intrusion contact, argillites were completely decarbonated, resulting in melilite + wollastonite + phlogopite + perovskite-bearing parageneses. In marbles, this assemblage is confined to a narrow 7-12-m-wide infiltration zone adjacent to the contact. Up to this distance, calcite + wollastonite + diopside + alkali feldspar + titanite was stable, indicating that the fluid evolution in these marbles was internally buffered. Brine infiltration from the metaargillite aquifer into the marbles occurred perpendicular to the marble-metaargillite boundaries and was confined to a zone 4-6 cm wide above the boundaries. This is documented by the three reactions Cc + Di = Mel + CO₂, (1) Cc + Kfs + Di + H₂O = Phl + Wo + CO₂, (2) Cc + Ttn = Prv + Wo + CO₂, (3) Melilites (Ak_32-45Gh_13-32Sm_32-40 to Ak_52-72Gh_0-1Sm_28-48) occur as rims around diopsides and become continuously thicker towards the metaargillite beds. Fluid inclusion observations suggest that the infiltrating brine was hypersaline (NaCl + KCl_cq～ 65 wt%) and that the reactions took place at the water-rich side of the H₂O-CO₂-salts immiscibility field at about 600d? C (2, 3) and 660 to 680d? C (1) at P～ 1200 bar and X_co2～ 0.02. Mass balance calculations show that the amount of brine infiltrated from the aquifer into the marble was very low and decreased continuously with increasing distance from the boundary. The maximum width of brine infiltration was about 6 cm. This confirms that brine flow was largely parallel to the aquifer, not perpendicular to it. The CO₂ produced by the decarbonation reactions probably escaped as an immiscible low-density H₂O-CO₂ fluid of X_co2≤ 0.5 into overlying marble via grain-edge flow. The metaargillite-marble boundary acted as a semipermeable membrane 6 cm in thickness keeping back the brine in the aquifer and losing the in-situ produced low-density CO₂-rich fluid.     

Calibration and validation of a general infiltration model

A general infiltration model proposed by Singh and Yu (1990) was calibrated and validated using a split sampling approach for 191 sets of infiltration data observed in the states of Minnesota and Georgia in the USA. Of the five model parameters, f_c (the final infiltration rate), S_o (the available storage space) and exponent ‘n’ were found to be more predictable than the other two parameters: m (exponent) and a (proportionality factor). A critical examination of the general model revealed that it is related to the Soil Conservation Service (1956) curve number (SCS‐CN) method and its parameter S_o is equivalent to the potential maximum retention of the SCS‐CN method and is, in turn, found to be a function of soil sorptivity and hydraulic conductivity. The general model was found to describe infiltration rate with time varying curve number. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.