A binary source model for extension-related magmatism in the great basin, Western north america

Models for extension-related magmatism based on decompression melting of asthenospheric mantle poorly simulate fluxes and bulk compositions of magmas produced during early stages of continental extension. For the Great Basin of western North America, it is proposed that magmatism proceeded in two stages, the first involving melting of lithospheric mantle sources between 40 and approximately 5 million years ago (Ma), followed (since approximately 5 Ma) by melting of upwelling asthenospheric mantle in areas where extension has exceeded about 100 percent. This transition in magma sources is diachronous, depending on initial variations in lithosphere thickness and on rates of lithospheric thinning.     

13C-Depleted carbon microparticles in >3700-Ma sea-floor sedimentary rocks from west greenland

Turbiditic and pelagic sedimentary rocks from the Isua supracrustal belt in west Greenland [more than 3700 million years ago (Ma)] contain reduced carbon that is likely biogenic. The carbon is present as 2- to 5-micrometer graphite globules and has an isotopic composition of delta13C that is about -19 per mil (Pee Dee belemnite standard). These data and the mode of occurrence indicate that the reduced carbon represents biogenic detritus, which was perhaps derived from planktonic organisms.     

Corrected Late Triassic latitudes for continents adjacent to the North Atlantic

We use a method based on a statistical geomagnetic field model to recognize and correct for inclination error in sedimentary rocks from early Mesozoic rift basins in North America, Greenland, and Europe. The congruence of the corrected sedimentary results and independent data from igneous rocks on a regional scale indicates that a geocentric axial dipole field operated in the Late Triassic. The corrected paleolatitudes indicate a faster poleward drift of approximately 0.6 degrees per million years for this part of Pangea and suggest that the equatorial humid belt in the Late Triassic was about as wide as it is today.     

Late cenozoic uplift of denali and its relation to relative plate motion and fault morphology

Apatite fission-track analysis of samples that cover a 4-kilometer vertical section from the western flank of Denali (Mount McKinley), North America's highest mountain, suggests that the mountain massif was formed by rapid uplift (> 1 kilometer per million years) beginning approximately 6 million years ago (Ma). Uplift was a result of the morphology of the Denali fault and a change in motion of the Pacific plate with respect to North America at approximately 5 Ma, which created opposing tangential vectors of relative movement along the fault and forced the intervening crustal blocks upward.     

Sm-nd and rb-sr chronology of continental crust formation

Samarium-neodymium and rubidium-strontium isotopic systematics together with plausible assumptions regarding the geochemical evlution of continental crust material, have been used to ascertain the times at which segments of continental crust were formed. Analyses of composites from the Canadian Shield representing portions of the Superior, Slave, and Churchill structural provinces indicate that these provinces were all formed within the period 2.5 to 2.7 aeons. It has been possible to determine the mean age of sediment provenances, as studies of sedimentary rocks suggest that the samarium-neodymium isotopic system is not substantially disturbed during sedimentation or diagenesis.     

Orbitolina, a cretaceous larger foraminifer, from flemish cap: paleoceanographic implications

The Tethyan larger foraminiferal genus Orbitolina has been found in the easternmost part of the western North Atlantic continental shelf at 46 degrees 30'N. All other known occurrences of the genus in North America are south of 33 degrees N. The species is Orbitolina conoidea Gras; its abundance in a grainsupported limestone indicates a tropical neritic environment and precludes the influence of Arctic waters in the Flemish Cap region in Early or Middle Cretaceous times.     

Mongolian Tree Rings and 20th-Century Warming

A 450-year tree-ring width chronology of Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica Du Tour) growing at timberline (2450 meters) in the Tarvagatay Mountains in west central Mongolia shows wide annual growth rings for the recent century. Ecological site observations and comparisons with instrumental temperature records indicate that the ring widths of these trees are sensitive to annual temperature variations. Low-frequency variations in the Tarvagatay tree-ring record are similar to those in a reconstruction of Arctic annual temperatures, which is based on 20 tree-ring width series from northern North America, Scandinavia, and western Russia. The results indicate that recent warming is unusual relative to temperatures of the past 450 years.     

Synchronous climate changes in antarctica and the north atlantic

Central Greenland ice cores provide evidence of abrupt changes in climate over the past 100,000 years. Many of these changes have also been identified in sedimentary and geochemical signatures in deep-sea sediment cores from the North Atlantic, confirming the link between millennial-scale climate variability and ocean thermohaline circulation. It is shown here that two of the most prominent North Atlantic events-the rapid warming that marks the end of the last glacial period and the Bolling/Allerod-Younger Dryas oscillation-are also recorded in an ice core from Taylor Dome, in the western Ross Sea sector of Antarctica. This result contrasts with evidence from ice cores in other regions of Antarctica, which show an asynchronous response between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.     

40Ar/39Ar Age of Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary Tektites from Haiti

(40)Ar/(39)Ar dating of tektites discovered recently in Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary marine sedimentary rocks on Haiti indicates that the K-T boundary and impact event are coeval at 64.5 +/- 0.1 million years ago. Sanidine from a bentonite that lies directly above the K-T boundary in continental, coal-bearing, sedimentary rocks of Montana was also dated and has a (40)Ar/(39)Ar age of 64.6 +/- 0.2 million years ago, which is indistinguishable statistically from the age of the tektites.     

Evidence for upwelling of corrosive "acidified" water onto the continental shelf

The absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) into the ocean lowers the pH of the waters. This so-called ocean acidification could have important consequences for marine ecosystems. To better understand the extent of this ocean acidification in coastal waters, we conducted hydrographic surveys along the continental shelf of western North America from central Canada to northern Mexico. We observed seawater that is undersaturated with respect to aragonite upwelling onto large portions of the continental shelf, reaching depths of approximately 40 to 120 meters along most transect lines and all the way to the surface on one transect off northern California. Although seasonal upwelling of the undersaturated waters onto the shelf is a natural phenomenon in this region, the ocean uptake of anthropogenic CO2 has increased the areal extent of the affected area.     

Climate impact of late quaternary equatorial pacific sea surface temperature variations

Magnesium/calcium data from planktonic foraminifera in equatorial Pacific sediment cores demonstrate that tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were 2.8 degrees +/- 0.7 degrees C colder than the present at the last glacial maximum. Glacial-interglacial temperature differences as great as 5 degrees C are observed over the last 450 thousand years. Changes in SST coincide with changes in Antarctic air temperature and precede changes in continental ice volume by about 3 thousand years, suggesting that tropical cooling played a major role in driving ice-age climate. Comparison of SST estimates from eastern and western sites indicates that the equatorial Pacific zonal SST gradient was similar or somewhat larger during glacial episodes. Extraction of a salinity proxy from the magnesium/calcium and oxygen isotope data indicates that transport of water vapor into the western Pacific was enhanced during glacial episodes.     

Mountains and arid climates of middle latitudes

Simulations from a global climate model with and without orography have been used to investigate the role of mountains in maintaining extensive arid climates in middle latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Dry climates similar to those observed were simulated over central Asia and western interior North America in the experiment with mountains, whereas relatively moist climates were simulated in these areas in the absence of orography. The experiments suggest that these interior regions are dry because general subsidence and relatively infrequent storm development occur upstream of orographically induced stationary wave troughs. Downstream of these troughs, precipitation-bearing storms develop frequently in association with strong jet streams. In contrast, both atmospheric circulation and precipitation were more zonally symmetric in the experiment without mountains. In addition, orography reduces the moisture transport into the continental interiors from nearby oceanic sources. The relative soil wetness of these regions in the experiment without mountains is consistent with paleoclimatic evidence of less aridity during the late Tertiary, before substantial uplift of the Rocky Mountains and Tibetan Plateau is believed to have occurred.     

巢湖典型小流域表土磷的空间分异特征及影响因素分析

研究了巢湖北部的烔炀河-岐阳河小流域土壤、富磷地质区岩石风化碎屑及烔炀河沉积物等表土物质中总磷(TP)含量,以及NaOH提取态磷(NaOH-P)、HCl提取态磷(HCl-P)、有机磷(OP)等形态组成特征,探讨了富磷地质区岩源性磷及人为污染对表土磷空间分异的影响。结果表明,土壤中TP平均含量为436.8mg·kg-1,其形态组成以OP和NaOH-P为主,分别占到TP含量的41.6%和32.0%,HCl-P平均百分含量为11.8%;富磷地质区岩石风化碎屑中TP平均含量4539.5mg·kg-1,其形态组成以HCl-P为主,NaOH-P、HCl-P、OP分别占到TP含量的0.5%、74.9%、3.5%;烔炀河沉积物中TP平均含量为683.0mg·kg-1,NaOH-P、HCl-P、OP分别占到TP含量的45.0%、20.6%、24.9%。空间上,HCl-P含量在流域上游的富磷地质区最高;NaOH-P含量在流域上游地区较低,而在流域中游-下游地区逐渐增加。烔炀河-岐阳河小流域表土中总磷含量与形态组成空间分异受到富磷地质区岩源性磷及人为污染的共同影响,其中岩源性磷对流域上游地区影响较大,而在中下游地区受到生活污水及化肥施用等人类活动的影响程度较大。     

Significance of "tethyan" fossils in the american cordillera

Equatorial faunas of the ancient Tethyan seaway, which extended from western Europe to southeastern Asia, comprise some of the most diverse marine taxa in the fossil record. Comparable or identical "Tethyan" species that occur far from the Tethyan seaway in Paleozoic and Mesozoic rocks of the North and South American Cordillera have long been considered as a major biogeographic anomaly. Two leading theories to account for the occurrence of these anomalous "Tethyan" faunas in the Cordillera are that they were transported long distances to the east on tectonic blocks(suspect terranes that originated near the Tethys) or that they migrated westward via undiscovered marine corridors through continental areas of Pangea. An alternative model is that these "Tethyan" fauna were pantropic species that extended with attenuated diversities into the eastern proto-Pacific Ocean. This pantropic model can better account for the distribution patterns of many Paleozoic and early Mesozoic "Tethyan" species in the American Cordillera and provides a steady state hypothesis against which the other models can be tested. The distribution of pre-Cretaceous "Tethyan" faunas is similar to the known pantropic distribution of many Cretaceous and Cenozoic tropical biotas. During the Cenozoic, taxa were most diverse in the Tethys and Indo-West Pacific regions but extended with attenuated diversity to many parts of the equatorial Pacific Ocean, including the west coasts of North and South America. The eastern Pacific occurrence of many Indo-West Pacific species provides a modern analog for the occurrence of many anomalous "Tethyan" fossils in the American Cordillera.     

Bottom-up ecosystem trophic dynamics determine fish production in the Northeast Pacific

We addressed the question of bottom-up versus top-down control of marine ecosystem trophic interactions by using annual fish catch data and satellite-derived (SeaWiFS) chlorophyll a measurements for the continental margin of western North America. Findings reveal a marked alongshore variation in retained primary production that is highly correlated with the alongshore variation in resident fish yield. The highest productivity occurs off the coasts of Washington and southern British Columbia. Zooplankton data for coastal British Columbia confirm strong bottom-up trophic linkages between phytoplankton, zooplankton, and resident fish, extending to regional areas as small as 10,000 square kilometers.     

Evolving subduction zones in the Western United States, as interpreted from igneous rocks

Variations in the ratio of K(2)O to SiO(2) in andesitic rocks suggest early and middle Cenozoic subduction beneath the western United States along two subparallel imbricate zones dipping about 20 degrees eastward. The western zone emerged at the continental margin, but the eastern zone was entirely beneath the continental plate. Mesozoic subduction apparently occurred along a single steeper zone.     

Triassic pollen date moroccan high atlas and the incipient rifting of pangea as middle carnian

Palynomorphs from the High Atlas Mountains south of Marrakech define the Minutosaccus-Patinasporites Concurrent Range Zone, which is time-stratigraphically equivalent to the Swiss and English middle Keuper, type Carnian of Austria, and North American Triassic beds in Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, thus dating an early episode of continental rifting between Africa and North America.     

珠江三角洲冲积平原土壤镉高含量区形成原因

通过现场采样及室内分析方法,研究了珠江三角洲冲积平原土壤Cd高含量区形成的原因。调查发现,在西江和北江冲积平原存在Cd的高含量分布区。Cd高含量区仅分布于第四纪海陆交互相,从地表至深部含量变化不大,为珠江三角洲形成过程中,富含Cd的西江和北江冲积物质在珠江三角洲沉积而成。Cd高含量区空间分布特征明显,控制因素显著,属于由地质作用引起。这一结论与多数研究者认为是人为因素引起的具有根本差别。     

Iguanid lizard from the upper cretaceous of Brazil

Pristiguana brasiliensis, new genus and species, from the Upper Cretaceous Baurú Formation of Brazil, is the oldest fossil referable to the living lizard family Iguanidae. It resembles living primitive South American iguanids in some features, but also shows similarity to members of the related family Teiidae. Iguanid fossils do not appear in North America until the early Eocene, probably by waif dispersal from South America during the late Paleocene or early Eocene. A southern continental (Gondwanan) origin of iguanids is more plausible than the northern one often suggested.     

Kerogen recycling in the ross sea, antarctica

Analyses of the stable isotopes of the organic carbon and microscopic examination of the sediment particles suggest that up to 90 percent of the organic matter in Ross Sea sediments is derived from the igneous and ancient metamorphic and sedimentary rocks that are being glacially eroded on the Antarctic continent and transported seaward.