Ratios of stable carbon isotopes in some High Arctic plants and lake sediments

¹³C/¹²C ratios for a number of High Arctic vascular plants (51 determinations), mosses (11), and freshwater algae (11) show considerable variation, particularly among the freshwater algae (range from-6.9 to -36.3). In some cases the stable carbon ratios on modern and fossil materials provide guidance as to whether marine waters formerly occupied a given pond or lake basin. In other cases the ¹³C values for algae collected along the present-day shore of a pond or lake bear no relation to the values obtained on constituents preserved within the bottom sediments, suggesting that major changes have occurred in the last few thousand years.Geological Survey of Canada Contribution No. 17291. Contribution No. 41 from the Cape Herschel Project.     

青藏高原腹地湖泊沉积对第四纪晚期古季风变化的响应

通过对青藏高原腹地的综合科学考察和对中心钻孔岩芯剖面的最新研究,用层序地层学与年代地层学和气候地层学相结合的方法,分辨出可可西里地区湖泊沉积记录(孔深7.25 m)的第四纪晚期距今3万余年以来的古气候变化,沉积物磁化率等因子综合表征的高原古季风变化是波动发展的,发生在仙女木期地质环境事件中的季风活动具有强烈暴发的特点,是高原季风发展中的突变事件,而且地表热点效应对其起到了激发作用。综合分析的研究成果表明,它的变化频谱与激变因子及其运行机制是伴随着青藏高原地质效应的演变而发展的,为研究第四纪冰消期以来的气候变化提供了新的信息。     

重力取样器取样技术研究

在湖泊环境研究中，淤泥质沉积物取样是一项很重要的工作，样品的取心率和原状性直接影响了环境研究的结果。重力取样器是获取湖泊、水库等水域浅层湖泊沉积物的一种经济有效、操作简单的常用工具。因此研究重力取样器的取样技术对环境研究具有积极的意义。研究了重力取样器的取样技术，并在此基础上成功设计了一种便携式的重力式取样器，非常适合环境研究机构的沉积物取样工作。     

Cretaceous isochron ages from K–Ar and Ar / Ar dating of eclogitic rocks in the Tso Morari Complex, western Himalaya, India

The Tso Morari Complex, which is thought to be originally the margin of the Indian continent, is composed of pelitic gneisses and schists including mafic rock lenses (eclogites and basic schists). Eclogites studied here have the mineral assemblage Grt + Omp + Ca-Amp + Zo + Phn + Pg + Qtz + Rt. They also have coesite pseudomorph in garnet and quartz rods in omphacite, suggesting a record of ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism. They occur only in the cores of meter-scale mafic rock lenses intercalated with the pelitic schists. Small mafic lenses and the rim parts of large lenses have been strongly deformed to form the foliation parallel to that of the pelitic schists and show the mineral assemblages of upper greenschist to amphibolite facies metamorphism. The garnet–omphacite thermometry and the univariant reaction relations for jadeite formation give 13–21 kbar at 600 °C and 16–18 kbar at 750 °C for the eclogite formation using the jadeite content of clinopyroxene (X_Jd = 0.48).

Phengites in pelitic schists show variable Si / Al and Na / K ratios among grains as well as within single grains, and give K–Ar ages of 50–87 Ma. The pelitic schist with paragonite and phengite yielded K–Ar ages of 83.5 Ma (K = 4.9 wt.%) for paragonite–phengite mixture and 85.3 Ma (K = 7.8 wt.%) for phengite and an isochron age of 91 ± 13 Ma from the two dataset. The eclogite gives a plateau age of 132 Ma in Ar/Ar step-heating analyses using single phengite grain and an inverse isochron age of 130 ± 39 Ma with an initial ⁴⁰Ar / ³⁶Ar ratio of 434 ± 90 in Ar/Ar spot analyses of phengites and paragonites. The Cretaceous isochron ages are interpreted to represent the timing of early stage of exhumation of the eclogitic rocks assuming revised high closure temperature (500 °C) for phengite K–Ar system. The phengites in pelitic schists have experienced retrograde reaction which modified their chemistry during intense deformation associated with the exhumation of these rocks with the release of significant radiogenic ⁴⁰Ar from the crystals. The argon release took place in the schists that experienced the retrogression to upper greenschist facies metamorphisms from the eclogite facies conditions.     

Primary volcanic structures from a type section of Deccan Trap flows around Narsingpur-Harrai-Amarwara, central India: Implications for cooling history

Field investigations of the Deccan Trap lava sequence along a 70 km traverse in the Narsingpur-Harrai-Amarwara area of central India indicate twenty lava flows comprising a total thickness of around 480 m. Primary volcanic structures like vesicles and cooling joints are conspicuous in this volcanic succession and are used to divide individual flows into three well-defined zones namely the lower colonnade zone, entablature zone, and the upper colonnade zone. The variable nature of these structural zones is used for identification and correlation of lava flows in the field. For twenty lava flows, the thicknesses of upper colonnade zones of eight flows are ∼5 m while those of eight other flows are ∼8 m each. The thicknesses of upper colonnade zones of remaining four flows could not be measured in the field. Using the thicknesses of these upper colonnade zones and standard temperature-flow thickness-cooling time profiles for lava pile, the total cooling time of these sixteen Deccan Trap lava flows has been estimated at 12 to 15 years.     

A highlight of environmental and engineering geology in Fargo, North Dakota, USA

Several unfavorable environmental and engineering geologic conditions exist in Fargo, North Dakota. Dominantly, the behavior of smectitic clays within the proglacial Lake Agassiz sediments of the Sherack and Brenna Formations creates subsoil instability beneath engineered structures in the Fargo area and slope instability within cutbank meanders of the Red River of the North. Unfavorable engineering geologic conditions encountered include: the elastic deformation of clayey glaciolacustrine soils, shrink-swell properties, inadequate bearing capacities, and mass movements. These conditions are responsible for structural failures including the Fargo Grain Elevator in 1955 and the Northern Pacific railroad grade. Bank failures along the Red River are common due to the inherent instability of Brenna Formation smectitic clays which are subject to plastic deformation in the subsurface, with resultant block failure of overlying Sherack Formation. Recent alluvial sediments due to typical fluvial action and the continued seasonal saturation of cutbank meanders within the floodplain also add to soil instability.     

Fission track evidence for the Mesozoic Cenozoic tectonic uplift of Mt. Bogda, Xinjiang, Northwest China

1 IntroductionThe Mesozoic-Cenozoic tectonic evolution and ki-netics mechanism of the intracontinental orogen are thekey subjects of continental dynamics (Ma Zongjin andGao Xianglin, 2004) and the key to understanding theregional geological tectonics (Qia…