The influence of foliation on the fragility of granitic rocks, image analysis and quantitative microscopy

Fabric-dependent anisotropy is important in understanding the mechanical behaviour of foliated rocks because the foliation creates mechanically weak discontinuities. Using optical microscopy, a foliation index (FIX) was calculated for a group of granitic rocks in southern Sweden that displays a range of textures from foliated to nonfoliated. Image analysis from scanning electron microscope with backscattered detector (SEM/BSE) images was used in order to measure the rock texture of these samples. The analyses were compared with the Los Angeles (LA) test, which measures resistance of rock aggregate to fragmentation. The results demonstrate that the measured grain size, shape and spatial arrangement are important parameters controlling the fragility of the rock. Both the texture and foliation must be taken into account to obtain a significant relationship with the mechanical analyses. We suggest that this alternative method could be a helpful tool for predicting a rock's suitability as an aggregate as it gives a better understanding of the material properties compared to mechanical testing.     

Contractional tectonics and magma paths in volcanoes

This study aims to contribute a possible explanation for magma migration within volcanoes located in contractional tectonic settings, based on field data and physically-scaled experiments. The data demonstrate the occurrence of large stratovolcanoes in areas of coeval reverse faulting, in spite of the widely accepted idea that volcanism can develop only in extensional/transcurrent tectonic settings. The experiments simulate the propagation of deformation from substrate reverse faults with different attitudes and locations into volcanoes. The substrate fault splits into two main shear zones within the volcano: A shallow-dipping one, with reverse motion, propagates towards the lower volcano flank, and a steeper-dipping one, with normal motion, propagates upwards. In plan view, the reverse fault zone is arcuate and convex outwards, whereas the normal fault zone is rectilinear. Structural field surveys at volcanoes located in contractional settings show similar features: The Plio–Quaternary Trohunco and Los Cardos–Centinela volcanic complexes (Argentina) lie above Plio–Quaternary reverse faults. The Late Pleistocene–Holocene El Reventador volcano (Ecuador) is also located in a coeval contractional tectonic belt. These volcanoes show curvilinear reverse faults along one flank and rectilinear extensional fracture zones across the crater area, consistent with the experiments. These data consistently suggest that magma migrates along the substrate reverse fault and is channelled along the normal fault zone across the volcano.     

Shallow Miocene basaltic magma reservoirs in the Bahia de Los Angeles basin, Baja California, Mexico

The basement in the Bahía de Los Angeles basin consists of Paleozoic metamorphic rocks and Cretaceous granitoids. The Neogene stratigraphy overlying the basement is formed, from the base to the top, by andesitic lava flows and plugs, sandstone and conglomeratic horizons, and Miocene pyroclastic flow units and basaltic flows. Basaltic dikes also intrude the whole section. To further define its structure, a detailed gravimetric survey was conducted across the basin about 1 km north of the Sierra Las Flores. In spite of the rough and lineal topography along the foothills of the Sierra La Libertad, we found no evidence for large-scale faulting. Gravity data indicates that the basin has a maximum depth of 120 m in the Valle Las Tinajas and averages 75 m along the gravimetric profile. High density bodies below the northern part of the Sierra Las Flores and Valle Las Tinajas are interpreted to be part of basaltic dikes. The intrusive body located north of the Sierra Las Flores is 2.5 km wide and its top is about 500 m deep. The lava flows of the top of the Sierra Las Flores, together with the distribution of basaltic activity north of this sierra, suggests that this intrusive body continues for 20 km along a NNW-trending strike. Between the sierras Las Flores and Las Animas, a 0.5-km-wide, 300-m-thick intrusive body is interpreted at a depth of about 100 m. This dike could be part of the basaltic activity of the Cerro Las Tinajas and the small mounds along the foothills of western Sierra Las Animas. The observed local normal faulting in the basin is inferred to be mostly associated with the emplacement of the shallow magma reservoirs below Las Flores and Las Tinajas.     

利用InSAR短基线技术估计洛杉矶地区的地表时序形变和含水层参数

美国南加州洛杉矶地区是自然和人为活动引起的地质构造活跃、石油及地下水抽取和回灌频繁的区域.本文利用19景ENVISAT ASAR降轨影像生成了71幅垂直基线小于300 m、时间间隔小于3年的解缠差分干涉图,并基于短基线集技术(SBAS),GPS和地下水水位数据估计了该区域2003年9月~2009年8月的地表时序形变及含水层贮水系数等物理参数.研究结果表明:(1)在InSAR干涉图中可以清楚的识别多处沉降明显的区域.例如,主要由于含水层地下水的抽取与回灌引起地表沉降的Pasadena盆地(~-2.5 cm/a)、San Gabriel流域(~-2 cm/a)、San Bernardino盆地(~-2.5 cm/a)、Pomona-Ontario盆地(~-4 cm/a)和Santa Ana盆地(~-2.5 cm/a),以及由石油抽取引起地面形变的Santa Fe Springs区域(~-1 cm/a)和Wilmington区域(~-1 cm/a)等;(2)InSAR时间序列形变与GPS投影在雷达视线方向上的形变结果具有较高的一致性,平均形变速率差异的均方差为0.39 cm/a;(3)InSAR时间序列形变与含水层地下水位的变化基本一致,并基于相关理论计算出了含水层的弹性贮水系数和非弹性贮水系数,分析了含水层的形变机理.     

CHANGING SUBURBAN RETAIL PATTERNS IN METROPOLITAN LOS ANGELES*

Competition among California communities for retail sales tax revenues has increased since the imposition of property tax limitations in the late 1970s. Suburban adoption of redevelopment and other economic planning practices is altering the spatial pattern of retailing in suburban Los Angeles. In the inner suburbs, economic planning contributes to increased spatial concentration of retailing. In the outer suburbs, local economic planning in predominantly residential suburbs has helped reduce the spatial concentration of retailing.     

Le domaine Tariquide (arc de Gibraltar,Espagne et Maroc) : succession sédimentaire et événements structuraux au Lias et au Dogger

The Lias–Dogger successions of the Tariquide units in the Gibraltar Arc differ from the series of tectonically adjacent units, the Penibetic (Iberia margin) and the Limestone ‘Dorsale’ (Alboran Domain). Lower Lias limestones are eroded and covered by the Domerian, which starts by deposits of open sea, continuous up to the Dogger (J. Musa-type successions), and elsewhere (Los Pastores-type successions) by a thin series (Upper Lias to Upper Dogger), starting by a manganesiferous episode (Ras Leona) and including marls deposited into three episodes, dated by calcareous nannofossils. Faulting events occurred before the Domerian and during the Late Toarcian (Los Pastores). To cite this article: M. Durand-Delga et al., C. R. Geoscience 337 (2005).     

Progressive assembly of a massive layer of ignimbrite with a normal-to-reverse compositional zoning: the Zaragoza ignimbrite of central Mexico

The Zaragoza ignimbrite and two enclosing rhyodacite pumice fall layers were emplaced during the 15 km³ (DRE), ∼0.1 Ma Zaragoza eruption from Los Humeros volcanic centre, 180 km east of Mexico City. The ignimbrite comprises several massive flow-units, the largest of which locally exceeds 20 m in thickness and is regionally traceable. It comprises massive lapilli-ash with vertical elutriation pipes, and has a fine-grained inverse-graded base and a pumice concentration zone at the top. It also exhibits an unusual gradational ‘double’ vertical compositional zonation that is widely traceable. A basal rhyodacitic (67.6–69 wt% SiO₂) zone grades up via a mixed zone into a central andesitic (58–62 wt% SiO₂) zone, which, in turn, grades up into an upper rhyodacitic (67.6–69 wt% SiO₂) zone. Zoning is also defined by vertical variations in lithic clast populations. We infer that pyroclastic fountaining fed initially rhyodacite pumice clasts to a sustained granular fluid-based pyroclastic density current. The composition of the pumice clasts supplied to the current then gradually changed, first to andesite and then back to rhyodacite. Inverse grading at the base of the massive layer may reflect initial waxing flow competence. The pumice concentration at the top of the massive layer is entirely rhyodacitic and was probably deposited during waning stages of the current, when the supply of andesitic pumice clasts had ceased. The return to rhyodacitic composition may have been the result of eruption-conduit modification during collapse of Los Potreros caldera, marked in the ignimbrite by a widespread influx of hydrothermally altered lithic blocks, and/or a decrease in draw-up depth from a compositionally stratified magma chamber as the eruptive mass flux waned. The massive layer of ignimbrite thins locally to less than 2 m, yet it still shows the double zonation. Correlation of the zoning suggests that the thin massive layer is stratigraphically condensed, and aggraded relatively slowly during the same time interval as did the much thicker (≤50 m) massive layer.Editorial responsibility: J McPhie     

^210Pb chronology and trace metal geochemistry at Los Tuxtlas, Mexico, as evidenced by a sedimentary record from the Lago Verde crater lake

Lago Verde is a fresh water maar found in the San Martin volcano, at the Sierra of Los Tuxtlas, Mexico, currently the northernmost remnant of the tropical rain forest in America. A sediment core from Lago Verde was analyzed for ^210Pb and ^137Cs in order to assess the evolution of the accretion rates in the lake and to reconstruct the historical fluxes of heavy metals （Ag, Cd, Cu, Pb, Hg and Zn） to the site during the last -140 years. C/N ^13C were used to evaluate the provenance of the organic atomic ratios and matter accumulated in the sediments. Modem sediments from Lago Verde were found enriched in Pb （26-fold natural concentration level, NCL＇s） and moderately enriched in Cd〉Cu〉Zn and Hg （6, 5, 4 and 4 fold corresponding NCL＇s）. The excess fluxes of Cu, Hg, Pb and Zn have importantly increased during the last 60 years, with peak ratios of total modem to preindustrial fluxes （FR） of 11, 11, 19 and 49, respectively. The lake occupies a relatively pristine, non-industrialized basin, surrounded mostly by pasture lands and sugar cane fields; therefore the increased metal fluxes recorded in the sediment core are most likely related to the enhanced rate of erosion within the watershed, promoted by changes in land use and the irrational deforestation of the tropical rain forest, which have occurred during the past.