Andesine megacrysts in alkali basalts from Japan

Andesine megacrysts up to 3 cm in size occur sporadically in certain alkali basalts and allied mafic rocks in southwestern Japan. They are sometimes accompanied by megacrysts of mafic minerals and ultramafic and mafic inclusions. Nine andesines have been chemically analysed.From the petrography and chemistry and the results of high pressure experimental work, it is suggested that andesine megacrysts crystallized from alkali basalt magma under dry conditions at a depth of about 30 to 60 km.     

Opening and closing process of the Paleo-Tethys in Northern Thailand

The Paleo-Tethys formed a large ocean basin that existed between Laurasia and Gondwana during Late Paleozoic to Early Mesozoic times. It opened in the Early Devonian by the rifting of Gondwanaland and closed at around latest Triassic time by the collision of the Cimmerian continent to Laurasia (Metcalfe, 1999). We reconstructed opening and closing process of the Paleo-Tethys in Northern Thailand.     

泰国北部Inthanon带外来硅质岩块的中、晚二叠世放射虫：对与古特提斯消减有关的混杂岩形成时代的约束

The Inthanon Zone of Northern Thailand, origi-nally proposed by Barr and Macdonald (1991), is characterized by the occurrence of Paleo-Tethyan pe-lagic sediments including Carboniferous–Permian seamount-type carbonate associated with oceanic ba-saltic rocks and Middle Devonian–Middle Triassic radiolarian chert (Ueno, 1999; Ueno and Hisada, 2001; Ueno and Charoentitirat, 2011). These pelagic rocks have been mainly studied from the viewpoint of bio-stratigraphy to clarify the duration of their deposition. These studies concluded the Paleo-Tethys to be a vast ocean basin once existed between the Indochina and Sibumasu continental blocks during Devo-nian–Triassic times.     

Mineralogy,textures, and whole-rock geochemistry of advanced argillic alteration: Hugo Dummett porphyry Cu–Au deposit,Oyu Tolgoi mineral district,Mongolia

Advanced argillic (AA) alteration is developed over a vertical interval of 500 m, above (and enclosing) Late Devonian quartz monzodiorite intrusions that accompany porphyry-style Cu–Au mineralization at the Hugo Dummett deposit. The AA alteration is mainly in basaltic rocks and locally extends into the overlying dacitic ash-flow tuff for about 100 m. The AA zone overprints porphyry-style quartz veins associated with quartz monzodiorite intrusions, but at least partly precedes high-grade porphyry-style bornite mineralization. Mineralogically, it consists of andalusite, corundum, residual quartz, titanium oxides, diaspore, alunite, aluminum phosphate-sulfate (APS) minerals, zunyite, pyrophyllite, topaz, kaolinite, and dickite, as well as anhydrite and gypsum, but is dominated by residual quartz and pyrophyllite. Alteration zonation is not apparent, except for an alunite-bearing zone that occurs approximately at the limit of strong quartz veining. Whole-rock geochemistry shows that the AA alteration removes most major elements except Si, Al, Ti, and P, and removes the trace elements Sc, Cs, and Rb. V, Zr, Hf, Nb, Ta, U, and Th are relatively immobile, whilst light REEs (La to Nd), Sr, Ba, and Ga can be enriched. Middle REEs (Sm to Gd) are moderately depleted; Y and heavy REEs (Tb to Lu) are strongly depleted except in two unusual samples where middle to heavy REEs are enriched.     

Early Permian ammonoids from the Kaeng Krachan Group of the Phatthalung-Hat Yai area, southern peninsular Thailand

An Early Permian small ammonoid fauna consisting of Neocrimites sp., Agathiceras suessi Gemmellaro, A. girtyi Böse, Agathiceras? sp., and Miklukhoceras sp. was found in nodules of a fine sandstone bed exposed in the Phatthalung-Hat Yai area of southern peninsular Thailand. The ammonoid-bearing bed belongs stratigraphically to the uppermost part of the Kaeng Krachan Group, which is essentially a clastic-dominant, Late Carboniferous (?) to Early Permian stratigraphic unit, widely distributed in western and peninsular Thailand. This ammonoid fauna is considered to be of Bolorian (Kungurian) age and includes Agathiceras girtyi Böse, which is described for the first time from Thailand. The present discovery of Bolorian ammonoids suggests that the uppermost part of the Kaeng Krachan Group is slightly younger than previously considered and around the latest Early Permian. This further implies that the continental margin environment of the Sibumasu Block drastically changed at around Bolorian time from a cool, clastic-dominant shelf condition to a temperate to subtropical, carbonate platform due to rapid northward drift after middle Artinskian rifting.     

Paleo-environments and tectonic setting of the Mesozoic Thung Yai Group in Peninsular Thailand,with a new record of Parvamussium donaiense Mansuy, 1914

The Thung Yai Group extends over a large area of peninsular Thailand, along the eastern margin of the Shan Thai block. Bound by angular unconformities 300 m thick dominantly detritic brackish to non-marine deposits with few intercalated limestone beds between Triassic marine and Tertiary non-marine sediments, represent the Thung Yai Group that comprises four formations: Khlong Min, Lam Thap, Sam Chom, and Phun Phin Formations. In the Ao Luk–Plai Phraya (ALPP) area, the Khlong Min and Lam Thap formations yield marine, brackish-water and non-marine fossil assemblages. These include trace fossils and for the first time in peninsular southern Thailand, the bivalve Parvamussium donaiense Mansuy, 1914. Based on fossil determinations, the Thung Yai Group has a late Early Jurassic to Early Cretaceous age.Our new observations help unravel the tectonic history of Mesozoic Peninsular Thailand. After the complete closure of the Paleotethys in the Late Triassic, renewed inundation, from the late Early Jurassic to the early Middle Jurassic, brought a regime of shallow to open marine and lagoon sedimentation over northwestern, western and southern peninsular Thailand, in the eastern part of Sundaland bordering the Mesotethys to the west.     

Petrogenesis of ultramafic rocks and olivine-rich troctolites from the East Taiwan Ophiolite in the Lichi mélange

Mineralogy and Petrology - We examine ultramafic and olivine-rich troctolite blocks of the East Taiwan Ophiolite (ETO) in the Lichi Mélange. Although ultramafic rocks are extensively...     

Dynamics of microphytobenthic biomass in a coastal area of western Seto Inland Sea, Japan

This study focused on the causes of the variation in microphytobenthic biomass and the effects of this variation on macrobenthic animals in the western Seto Inland Sea, Japan, where the importance of microphytobenthos as the primary food source for benthic animals has been recently reported. We investigated the microphytobenthic biomass together with light attenuation of seawater, phytoplanktonic biomass, macrobenthic density and biomass at eight stations (water depth = 5–15 m) during four cruises in 1999–2000. The increased light attenuation coefficient of the water column associated with increased concentration of the phytoplanktonic Chl-a caused a decrease in light flux that reached the seafloor. The biomass of the microphytobenthos within the upper 1 cm of the sediment, 1.9–46.5 mg Chl-a m⁻², was inversely correlated with the phytoplanktonic biomass in the overlying water column, 10.9–65.0 mg Chl-a m⁻². Thus, interception of light by phytoplankton is considered to be a main cause of the variation in the microphytobenthic biomass. The microphytobenthos biomass showed a significant positive correlation with the macrobenthic density (78–9369 ind. m⁻²) and biomass (0.4–78.8 gWW m⁻²). It appears that the increase in oxygen production by the microphytobenthos allowed macrobenthic animals to become more abundant, as a consequence of oxygenation of the organically enriched muddy sediments (14.5 ± 2.69 mg TOC g⁻¹). This study suggests that the variation in the microphytobenthic biomass is influenced by the phytoplanktonic biomass due to shading effect, and the balance between these two functional groups might affect the variability in the macrobenthic density and biomass.