Origin and stratigraphy of phreatomagmatic deposits at the Pleistocene Sinker Butte Volcano, Western Snake River Plain, Idaho

Sinker Butte is the erosional remnant of a very large basaltic tuff cone of middle Pleistocene age located at the southern edge of the western Snake River Plain. Phreatomagmatic tephras are exposed in complete sections up to 100 m thick in the walls of the Snake River Canyon, creating an unusual opportunity to study the deposits produced by this volcano through its entire sequence of explosive eruptions. The main objectives of the study were to determine the overall evolution of the Sinker Butte volcano while focusing particularly on the tephras produced by its phreatomagmatic eruptions. Toward this end, twenty-three detailed stratigraphic sections ranging from 20 to 100 m thick were examined and measured in canyon walls exposing tephras deposited around 180° of the circumference of the volcano.Three main rock units are recognized in canyon walls at Sinker Butte: a lower sequence composed of numerous thin basaltic lava flows, an intermediate sequence of phreatomagmatic tephras, and a capping sequence of welded basaltic spatter and more lava flows. We subdivide the phreatomagmatic deposits into two main parts, a series of reworked, mostly subaqueously deposited tephras and a more voluminous sequence of overlying subaerial surge and fall deposits. Most of the reworked deposits are gray in color and exhibit features such as channel scour and fill, planar-stratification, high and low angle cross-stratification, trough cross-stratification, and Bouma-turbidite sequences consistent with their being deposited in shallow standing water or in braided streams. The overlying subaerial deposits are commonly brown or orange in color due to palagonitization. They display a wide variety of bedding types and sedimentary structures consistent with deposition by base surges, wet to dry pyroclastic fall events, and water saturated debris flows.Proximal sections through the subaerial tephras exhibit large regressive cross-strata, planar bedding, and bomb sags suggesting deposition by wet base surges and tephra fallout. Medial and distal deposits consist of a thick sequence of well-bedded tephras; however, the cross-stratified base-surge deposits are thinner and interbedded within the fallout deposits. The average wavelength and amplitude of the cross strata continue to decrease with distance from the vent. These bedded surge and fall deposits grade upward into dominantly fall deposits containing 75–95% juvenile vesiculated clasts and localized layers of welded spatter, indicating a greatly reduced water-melt ratio. Overlying these “dryer” deposits are massive tuff breccias that were probably deposited as water saturated debris flows (lahars). The first appearance of rounded river gravels in these massive tuff breccias indicates downward coring of the diatreme and entrainment of country rock from lower in the stratigraphic section. The “wetter” nature of these deposits suggests a renewed source of external water. The massive deposits grade upward into wet fallout tephras and the phreatomagmatic sequence ends with a dry scoria fall deposit overlain by welded spatter and lava flows.Field observations and two new ⁴⁰Ar–³⁹Ar incremental heating dates suggest the succession of lavas and tephra deposits exposed in this part of the Snake River canyon may all have been erupted from a closely related complex of vents at Sinker Butte. We propose that initial eruptions of lava flows built a small shield edifice that dammed or disrupted the flow of the ancestral Snake River. The shift from effusive to explosive eruptions occurred when the surface water or rising ground water gained access to the vent. As the river cut a new channel around the lava dam, water levels dropped and the volcano returned to an effusive style of eruption.     

Geology, mineralogy, and PGE mineralization of the copper-nickel occurrences of the Kvinum ore field, Sredinny Range, Kamchatka

The geology and mineralogy of host metamorphic rocks, the mineralogy of sulfide ores, and the distribution of PGE mineralization were studied in detail for the Kvinum-1 and Kvinum-2 copper-nickel occurrences of the Kvinum ore field, which are the most promising targets for the copper-nickel-PGE mineralization of the Sredinny Range of Kamchatka. It was established that stringer-disseminated and massive copper-nickel ores are localized in amphibole peridotites, cortlandites, and form ore bodies varying from tens of centimeters to 5–20 m thick among the layered cortlandite-gabbroid massifs. The massive sulfide ores were found only at the bottom of cortlandite bodies and upsection grade into stringer-disseminated and disseminated ores. Pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite, and pentlandite are the major ore minerals with a sharply subordinate amount of pyrite, sphalerite, galena, arsenopyrite, and löllingite. Besides pentlandite, the Ni-bearing minerals include sulforasenides (gersdorffite), arsenides (nickeline), and tellurides (melonite) of nickel. It was found that PGE mineralization represented by antimonides (sudburyite) and tellurobismuthides (michenerite) of Pd with sharply subordinate platinum arsenide (sperrylite) is confined to the apical parts of massive sulfide zones and the transition zone to the stringer-disseminated ores. Ore intervals enriched in arsenides and tellurides of Ni, Pd, and Bi contain high-purity gold. In the central parts of the orebodies, the contents of PGE and native gold are insignificant. It is suggested that the contents of major sulfide minerals and the productivity of PGE mineralization in the cortlandites are defined by combined differentiation and sulfurization of ultramafic derivatives under the effect of fluids, which are accumulated at the crystallization front and cause layering of parental magmas with different sulfur contents. The fluid-assisted layering of mafic-ultramafic massifs resulted in the contrasting distribution of PGM in response to uneven distribution of sulfur (as well as As, Te, and Bi) during liquid immiscibility. The productivity of PGE mineralization significantly increases with increasing contents of S, As, Te, and Bi (elements to which Pt and, especially, Pd have high affinity) in fluids.     

Geology of the Acropolis prospect,South Australia,constrained by high-precision CA-TIMS ages

Abstract

Acropolis is an Fe-oxide–copper–gold prospect ～20?km from Olympic Dam, South Australia, and marked by near-coincident gravity and magnetic anomalies. Prospective Fe-oxide–apatite?±?sulfide veins occur in Mesoproterozoic and Paleoproterozoic volcanic and granitoid host units beneath unmineralised sedimentary formations. We have produced a geological map and history of the prospect using data from 16 diamond drill holes, including LA-ICPMS and high-precision CA-TIMS ages. The oldest unit is megacrystic granite of the Donington Suite (ca 1850?Ma). A non-conformity spanning ca 250 My separates the Donington Suite and felsic lavas and ignimbrites of the Gawler Range Volcanics (GRV; 1594.03?±?0.68?Ma). The GRV were intruded by granite of the Hiltaba Suite (1594.88?±?0.50?Ma) and felsic dykes (1593.88?±?0.56?Ma; same age as the Roxby Downs Granite at Olympic Dam). The felsic dykes are weakly altered and lack Fe-oxide–apatite–sulfide veins, suggesting that they post-date the main hydrothermal event. If correct, this relationship implies that the main hydrothermal event at Acropolis was ca 1594?Ma and pre-dated the main hydrothermal event at Olympic Dam. The GRV at Acropolis are the same age as the GRV at Olympic Dam and ca 3–7 My older than the GRV exposed in the Gawler Ranges. The gravity and magnetic anomalies coincide with sections through the GRV, Hiltaba Suite and Donington Suite that contain abundant, wide, Fe-oxide veins. The GRV, Hiltaba Suite and Donington Suite are unconformably overlain by the Mesoproterozoic Pandurra Formation or Neoproterozoic Stuart Shelf sedimentary formations. The Pandurra Formation shows marked lateral variations in thickness related to paleotopography on the underlying units and post-Pandurra Formation pre-Neoproterozoic faults. The Stuart Shelf sedimentary formations have uniform thicknesses.

1. KEY POINTS

2. Fe-oxide–apatite?±?sulfide veins are hosted by the Gawler Range Volcanics (1594.03?±?0.68?Ma), the Hiltaba Suite granite (1594.88?±?0.50?Ma) and Donington Suite granite (ca 1850?Ma).

3. The age of felsic dykes (1593.88?±?0.56?Ma) interpreted to be post-mineralisation implies that the main hydrothermal event at Acropolis was ca 1594?Ma.

4. The Gawler Range Volcanics at Acropolis are the same age as the Gawler Range Volcanics at Olympic Dam and ca 3 to 7 My older than the Gawler Range Volcanics exposed in the Gawler Ranges.

     

Footwall dip of a core complex detachment fault: thermobarometric constraints from the northern Snake Range (Basin and Range,USA)

Low‐angle detachment faults are common features in areas of large‐scale continental extension and are typically associated with metamorphic core complexes, where they separate upper plate brittle extension from lower plate ductile stretching and metamorphism. In many core complexes, the footwall rocks have been exhumed from middle to lower crustal depths, leading to considerable debate about the relationship between hangingwall and footwall rocks, and the role that detachment faults play in footwall exhumation. Here, garnet–biotite thermometry and garnet–muscovite–biotite–plagioclase barometry results are presented, together with garnet and zircon geochronology data, from seven locations within metapelitic rocks in the footwall of the northern Snake Range décollement (NSRD). These locations lie both parallel and normal to the direction of footwall transport to constrain the pre‐exhumation geometry of the footwall. To determine P–T gradients precisely within the footwall, the ΔPT method of Worley & Powell (2000) has been employed, which minimizes the contribution of systematic uncertainties to thermobarometric calculations. The results show that footwall rocks reached pressures of 6–8 kbar and temperatures of 500–650 °C, equivalent to burial depths of 23–30 km. Burial depth remains constant in the WNW–ESE direction of footwall transport, but increases from south to north. The lack of a burial gradient in the direction of footwall transport implies that the footwall rocks, which today define a sub‐horizontal datum in the direction of fault transport, also defined a sub‐horizontal datum at depth in Late Cretaceous time. This suggests that the footwall was not tilted about the normal to the fault transport direction during exhumation, and hence that the NSRD did not form as a low‐angle normal fault cutting down through the lower crust. Instead, the following evolution for the northern Snake Range footwall is proposed. (i) Mesozoic contraction caused substantial crustal thickening by duplication and folding of the miogeoclinal sequence, accompanied by upper greenschist to amphibolite facies metamorphism. (ii) About half of the total exhumation was accomplished by roughly coaxial stretching and thinning in Late Cretaceous to Early Tertiary time, accompanied by retrogression and mylonitic deformation. (iii) The footwall rocks were then ‘captured’ from the middle crust along a moderately dipping NSRD that soled into the middle crust with a rolling‐hinge geometry at both upper and lower terminations.     

小兴安岭东南部伊春中生代花岗岩的锆石U-Pb测年及其地质意义

本文首次报道了小兴安岭南部伊春地区的五三零、南岔三林场及寒月林场岩体高精度锆石LA-ICP-MS U-Pb年龄。三个岩体均形成于早侏罗世,侵位年龄分别为175±3 Ma,180±2 Ma和195±2 Ma。岩石学和地球化学特征显示,这些岩体为高硅富碱性的钙碱性系列的二长花岗岩.花岗闪长岩组合,形成于造山后的伸展构造环境中,其大地构造背景与早侏罗世佳木斯板块和松嫩.张广才岭板块碰撞拼合后伸展作用有关。     

Snake Model for the Extraction of Loess Shoulder-line from DEMs

Shoulder lines are the most important landform demarcations for geographical analysis,soil erosion modeling and land use planning in the Loess Plateau area of China.This paper proposes an automatic,effective and accurate method of determining loess shoulder line from DEMs by integrating a hydrological D8 algorithm and a snake model.The watershed boundary line is adopted as the initial contour which evolves to identify the exact position of loess shoulder-line by the guidance of an external force of snake model from DEMs.Experiments show that the method overcomes the difficulties in both threshold selection for edge detection and the disconnecting issues in former extraction approaches.The accuracy evaluation of shoulder-line maps from the two test sites of the loess plateau area show obvious improvements in the extraction.The average contour matching distance of the new method is 12.0 m on 5 m resolution DEM,and shows improvement in the accuracy and continuity.The comparisons of accuracy evaluations of the two test sites show that the snake model method performs better in the loess plain area than in the area with high gully density.     

Pediment response to drainage basin evolution in south-central Arizona

The Sonoran Desert portion of the Basin and Range physiographic province contains a number of streams that now flow across once-closed basins. We explore here the research questions of if and how granitic rock pediments respond to the transition from rimming endorheic basins to bordering through-flowing streams. Granitic rock pediments of the northern Usery and eastern McDowell Mountains once graded to the closed Miocene–Pliocene Pemberton basin that occupied the present-day location of the confluence of the Salt and Verde Rivers. The process of lake overflow, which integrated these rivers, first aggraded fill terraces that, in turn, caused aggradation of a mantle of transported grus on bedrock pediments. Subsequent episodic incision of the Salt and Verde rivers lowered the base level; this led to the development of erosional features such as rolling topography of a degrading pediment mantle; exposure of the former piedmont angle and its associated zones of enhanced bedrock decay and regolith carbonate; and exposure of spheroidally weathered bedrock and emerging tors, some of which experienced 20^th century erosion. The granitic pediments of the former Pemberton Basin, which now transport grus to the Salt and Verde rivers, have actively adjusted to aggradational and degradational events associated with drainage integration and do not appear to be inherited from an ancient wet climatic interval.     

大兴安岭西坡银都赋矿岩体LA-ICP-MS锆石U-Pb定年及其成因意义

银都矿床位于内蒙古大兴安岭西坡,为受断裂控制的银多金属矿床。该矿床的岩体主要为石英闪长岩。该岩体中的锆石分为岩浆锆石和热液锆石两类:岩浆锆石无色透明,自形长柱状,具有典型的振荡环带特征;而热液锆石呈浅褐色,半透明—不透明,等轴状,其暗色增生边明显切过了核部岩浆锆石结构。热液锆石相对岩浆锆石具有低Th/U和LREE,高Hf和HREE的特征。银都岩体岩浆锆石的206Pb/238 U加权平均年龄为(451.8±7.8)Ma,属加里东期,为岩体的结晶年龄;热液锆石的206 Pb/238 U加权平均年龄为(337.0±7.7)Ma,属中石炭世,代表了热液作用的年龄。热液锆石年龄表明,该区在337Ma左右经历了一次强烈的热液作用,该期热液作用可能与该区造山峰期的变质作用有关。本区的地质特征和流体包裹体特征表明,本区银矿的形成很可能与这期热液活动密切相关。     

A paleomagnetic and magnetic fabric study of the Illapel Plutonic Complex,Coastal Range,central Chile: Implications for emplacement mechanism and regional tectonic evolution during the mid-Cretaceous

The Illapel Plutonic Complex (IPC), located in the Coastal Range of central Chile (31°–33° S), is composed of different lithologies, ranging from gabbros to trondhjemites, including diorites, tonalites and granodiorites. U/Pb geochronological data shows that the IPC was amalgamated from, at least, four different magmatic pulses between 117 and 90 Ma (Lower to mid-Cretaceous). We present new paleomagnetic results including Anisotropy of Magnetic Susceptibility (AMS) from 62 sites in the plutonic rocks, 10 sites in country rocks and 7 sites in a mafic dyke swarm intruding the plutonic rocks.Remanent magnetizations carried by pyrrhotite in deformed country rock sediments nearby the intrusive rocks indicate that tilting of the sedimentary rocks occurred prior or during the intrusion. The paleomagnetic study shows no evidence for either a measurable tilt of the IPC or a significant rotation of the forearc at this latitude range. Moreover, new ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar ages exclude any medium- to low-temperature post-magmatic recrystallization/deformation event in the studied samples. AMS data show a magnetic foliation that is often sub-vertical. Despite an apparent N–S elongated shape of the IPC, the large variations in the orientation of the AMS foliation suggests that this plutonic complex could be made of several units distributed in a N–S trend rather than N–S elongated bodies.Previous works have suggested for this area a major shift on tectonic evolution from highly extensional during Lower Cretaceous to a period around 100 Ma, associated with exhumation and compressive deformation to conform the present day Coastal Range. The low degree of anisotropy and the lack of evidence for a tectonic fabric in the intrusive rocks indicate that the shift from extensional to compressional should postdate the emplacement of the IPC, i.e. is younger than 90Ma.