Comparison of marine gas hydrates in sediments of an active and passive continental margin

Two sites of the Deep Sea Drilling Project in contrasting geologic settings provide a basis for comparison of the geochemical conditions associated with marine gas hydrates in continental margin sediments. Site 533 is located at 3191 m water depth on a spit-like extension of the continental rise on a passive margin in the Atlantic Ocean. Site 568, at 2031 m water depth, is in upper slope sediment of an active accretionary margin in the Pacific Ocean. Both sites are characterized by high rates of sedimentation, and the organic carbon contents of these sediments generally exceed 0.5%. Anomalous seismic reflections that transgress sedimentary structures and parallel the seafloor, suggested the presence of gas hydrates at both sites, and, during coring, small samples of gas hydrate were recovered at subbottom depths of 238m (Site 533) and 404 m (Site 568). The principal gaseous components of the gas hydrates wer methane, ethane, and CO₂. Residual methane in sediments at both sites usually exceeded 10 mll^?1 of wet sediment. Carbon isotopic compositions of methane, CO₂, and ΣCO₂ followed parallel trends with depth, suggesting that methane formed mainly as a result of biological reduction of oxidized carbon. Salinity of pore waters decreased with depth, a likely result of gas hydrate formation. These geochemical characteristics define some of the conditions associated with the occurrence of gas hydrates formed by in situ processes in continental margin sediments.     

Pan-African eclogite facies metamorphism of ultramafic rocks in the Shackleton Range, Antarctica

In the Shackleton Range of East Antarctica, garnet-bearing ultramafic rocks occur as lenses in supracrustal high-grade gneisses. In the presence of olivine, garnet is an unmistakable indicator of eclogite facies metamorphic conditions. The eclogite facies assemblages are only present in ultramafic rocks, particularly in pyroxenites, whereas other lithologies – including metabasites – lack such assemblages. We conclude that under high-temperature conditions, pyroxenites preserve high-pressure assemblages better than isofacial metabasites, provided the pressure is high enough to stabilize garnet–olivine assemblages (i.e. ≥18–20 kbar). The Shackleton Range ultramafic rocks experienced a clockwise P–T path and peak conditions of 800–850 °C and 23–25 kbar. These conditions correspond to ∼70 km depth of burial and a metamorphic gradient of 11–12 °C km⁻¹ that is typical of a convergent plate-margin setting. The age of metamorphism is defined by two garnet–whole-rock Sm–Nd isochrons that give ages of 525 ± 5 and 520 ± 14 Ma corresponding to the time of the Pan-African orogeny. These results are evidence of a Pan-African suture zone within the northern Shackleton Range. This suture marks the site of a palaeo-subduction zone that likely continues to the Herbert Mountains, where ophiolitic rocks of Neoproterozoic age testify to an ocean basin that was closed during Pan-African collision. The garnet-bearing ultramafic rocks in the Shackleton Range are the first known example of eclogite facies metamorphism in Antarctica that is related to the collision of East and West Gondwana and the first example of Pan-African eclogite facies ultramafic rocks worldwide. Eclogites in the Lanterman Range of the Transantarctic Mountains formed during subduction of the palaeo-Pacific beneath the East Antarctic craton.     

Drainage spacing regularity on a fault-block: A case study from the eastern Ruahine Range

Abstract:  Recent research has indicated river basin outlets draining linear sections of large, uplifting mountain belts often show a regularity of spacing, transverse to the main structural trend. A morphometric analysis of part of the Ruahine Range, on the North Island was undertaken to test whether drainage regularity may exist in smaller, younger mountain ranges. The ratio, R , of the half-width of the mountain belt, W , and the outlet spacing, S , was used to characterize drainage networks on the eastern side of the range. The spacing ratio for the range of 1.31 is lower than R results from studies of larger mountain belts ( R  = 1.91–2.23). We suggest the cause of this lower ratio is related to eastward migration of the Ruahine drainage divide.     

关于大陆与陆缘的深部地震探查的进展──1994、1996年两届国际学术讨论会综述

连续两届国际深部地震讨论会成果累累。对深部地震的资料采集、处理、解释技术以及几类专门地质地球物理问题的研究进行了综述。研究成果在理论、方法方面是该领域的世界先进水平：在地震学应用于陆缘、陆壳与壳幔过渡带等地质问题方面有明显的提高。提出了值得讨论的问题，最后探讨了发展趋势     

Physical disturbance creates bacterial dominance of benthic biological communities in tropical deltaic environments of the Gulf of Papua

Unlike many reactive continental shelf mud deposits in temperate regions, bacteria and microfauna rather than macrofauna typically dominate benthic biomass and activities over large areas of the Gulf of Papua (GoP) deltaic complex, Papua New Guinea. During mid NW monsoon periods (Jan–Feb), macrofaunal densities at Gulf stations were relatively low (), large macroinfauna were absent (upper 25 cm), and small (), surface deposit-feeding polychaetes and tubiculous amphipods were dominant, reflecting a frequently destabilized seabed and high sedimentation/erosion rates. Although frequent physical disturbance generally inhibits development of macrobenthic communities, some regions of the Gulf deposits are periodically colonized and extensively bioturbated during quiescent periods, as shown by preserved biogenic sedimentary structures. Bacterial inventories integrated over the top 20 cm were extremely variable within each sub region of the clinoform complex. A possible bimodal pattern with bathymetric depth and distance offshore may occur: lowest-inventories within the sandy, proximal Fly River delta, an open Gulf inner topset zone (10–20 m) having sites of relatively high inventories, an open Gulf mid-topset region with intermediate values and less extreme variation, and the outer topset—upper foreset zone (40–50 m) where highest values are attained (). Various measures of microbial activity, including measures proportional to the cellular rRNA content and the proportion of dividing cells, indicate extremely productive populations over the upper 1-m of the seabed throughout the Gulf of Papua region. Bacterial biomass (0–20 cm) including data of Alongi et al. (1991, 1992, 1995) varied from a low of in intertidal mud banks to a high of in the topset—foreset zone. Macrofaunal biomass did not exceed in any sampled region, ranging from 0.009±0 to with no obvious correlation with bathymetric depth (1–63 m). Meiofaunal biomass was generally an order of magnitude lower than macrofaunal biomass. Relatively elevated bacterial biomass and high turnover rates are consistent with high measured rates of benthic remineralization, presumably reflecting the rapid response time of bacteria to physical reworking, the associated entrainment of organic substrate, and flushing of metabolites. Solute exchange is also enhanced below the directly mixed surface region, possibly producing ‘far field’ stimulation of microbes in underlying deposits. Physical reworking and reoxidation of sediments between 10 and 50 m water depth maintain suboxic, nonsulfidic conditions in the upper 0.5–1 m despite active microbial communities and high benthic remineralization rates.     

Crustal structure of the Lofoten–Vesterålen continental margin, off Norway

By compiling wide-angle seismic velocity profiles along the 400-km-long Lofoten–Vesterålen continental margin off Norway, and integrating them with an extensive seismic reflection data set and crustal-scale two-dimensional gravity modelling, we outline the crustal margin structure. The structure is illustrated by across-margin regional transects and by contour maps of depth to Moho, thickness of the crystalline crust, and thickness of the 7+ km/s lower crustal body. The data reveal a normal thickness oceanic crust seaward of anomaly 23 and an increase in thickness towards the continent–ocean boundary associated with breakup magmatism. The southern boundary of the Lofoten–Vesterålen margin, the Bivrost Fracture Zone and its landward prolongation, appears as a major across-margin magmatic and structural crustal feature that governed the evolution of the margin. In particular, a steeply dipping and relatively narrow, 10–40-km-wide, Moho-gradient zone exists within a continent–ocean transition, which decreases in width northward along the Lofoten–Vesterålen margin. To the south, the zone continues along the Vøring margin, however it is offset 70–80 km to the northwest along the Bivrost Fracture Zone/Lineament. Here, the Moho-gradient zone corresponds to a distinct, 25-km-wide, zone of rapid landward increase in crustal thickness that defines the transition between the Lofoten platform and the Vøring Basin. The continental crust on the Lofoten–Vesterålen margin reaches a thickness of 26 km and appears to have experienced only moderate extension, contrasting with the greatly extended crust in the Vøring Basin farther south. There are also distinct differences between the Lofoten and Vesterålen margin segments as revealed by changes in structural style and crustal thickness as well as in the extent of elongate potential-field anomalies. These changes may be related to transfer zones. Gravity modelling shows that the prominent belt of shelf-edge gravity anomalies results from a shallow basement structural relief, while the elongate Lofoten Islands belt requires increased lower crustal densities along the entire area of crustal thinning beneath the islands. Furthermore, gravity modelling offers a robust diagnostic tool for the existence of the lower crustal body. From modelling results and previous studies on- and off-shore mid-Norway, we postulate that the development of a core complex in the middle to lower crust in the Lofoten Islands region, which has been exhumed along detachments during large-scale extension, brought high-grade, lower crustal rocks, possibly including accreted decompressional melts, to shallower levels.     

Creation of the Cocos and Nazca plates by fission of the Farallon plate

Throughout the Early Tertiary the area of the Farallon oceanic plate was episodically diminished by detachment of large and small northern regions, which became independently moving plates and microplates. The nature and history of Farallon plate fragmentation has been inferred mainly from structural patterns on the western, Pacific-plate flank of the East Pacific Rise, because the fragmented eastern flank has been subducted. The final episode of plate fragmentation occurred at the beginning of the Miocene, when the Cocos plate was split off, leaving the much reduced Farallon plate to be renamed the Nazca plate, and initiating Cocos–Nazca spreading. Some Oligocene Farallon plate with rifted margins that are a direct record of this plate-splitting event has survived in the eastern tropical Pacific, most extensively off northern Peru and Ecuador. Small remnants of the conjugate northern rifted margin are exposed off Costa Rica, and perhaps south of Panama. Marine geophysical profiles (bathymetric, magnetic and seismic reflection) and multibeam sonar swaths across these rifted oceanic margins, combined with surveys of 30–20 Ma crust on the western rise-flank, indicate that (i) Localized lithospheric rupture to create a new plate boundary was preceded by plate stretching and fracturing in a belt several hundred km wide. Fissural volcanism along some of these fractures built volcanic ridges (e.g., Alvarado and Sarmiento Ridges) that are 1–2 km high and parallel to “absolute” Farallon plate motion; they closely resemble fissural ridges described from the young western flank of the present Pacific–Nazca rise. (ii) For 1–2 m.y. prior to final rupture of the Farallon plate, perhaps coinciding with the period of lithospheric stretching, the entire plate changed direction to a more easterly (“Nazca-like”) course; after the split the northern (Cocos) part reverted to a northeasterly absolute motion. (iii) The plate-splitting fracture that became the site of initial Cocos–Nazca spreading was a linear feature that, at least through the 680 km of ruptured Oligocene lithosphere known to have avoided subduction, did not follow any pre-existing feature on the Farallon plate, e.g., a “fracture zone” trail of a transform fault. (iv) The margins of surviving parts of the plate-splitting fracture have narrow shoulders raised by uplift of unloaded footwalls, and partially buried by fissural volcanism. (v) Cocos–Nazca spreading began at 23 Ma; reports of older Cocos–Nazca crust in the eastern Panama Basin were based on misidentified magnetic anomalies.There is increased evidence that the driving force for the 23 Ma fission of the Farallon plate was the divergence of slab-pull stresses at the Middle America and South America subduction zones. The timing and location of the split may have been influenced by (i) the increasingly divergent northeast slab pull at the Middle America subduction zone, which lengthened and reoriented because of motion between the North America and Caribbean plates; (ii) the slightly earlier detachment of a northern part of the plate that had been entering the California subduction zone, contributing a less divergent plate-driving stress; and (iii) weakening of older parts of the plate by the Galapagos hotspot, which had come to underlie the equatorial region, midway between the risecrest and the two subduction zones, by the Late Oligocene.     

大兴安岭中段木瑞组的发现及其地质意义

在内蒙古1：5万蘑菇山幅、柴河源幅、苏河屯幅、兴安幅四幅区域地质调查中,研究人员通过详细的野外地质调查,首次在中侏罗统满克头鄂博组下部发现木瑞组,二者为整合接触关系。该组岩石类型为紫红色泥质粉砂岩夹灰白色砾岩,出露不完整,从而证明大兴安岭中段在中侏罗世历经陆相山间盆地堆积,具快速堆积特点。该组可作为一个区域性的标志层,对研究大兴安岭中段在中侏罗世期间地质演化史具有重要意义。     

黑龙江省三矿沟夕卡岩型铁铜矿床矿物学特征及成矿物理化学条件

黑龙江三矿沟铁铜矿床位于大兴安岭北段多宝山矿集区,矿体产于燕山期侵入岩与奥陶系多宝山组大理岩接触带的夕卡岩内。根据矿物共生组合及交代关系,确定热液成矿过程包括夕卡岩阶段、退夕卡岩阶段和石英硫化物阶段。铁矿化主要发生在退夕卡岩阶段,形成磁铁矿、镜铁矿等铁氧化物,呈浸染状、条带状、块状产于钙铁榴石夕卡岩中。铜矿化主要发生在石英硫化物阶段,形成黄铜矿、斑铜矿等硫化物,交代早期矿物。电子探针分析等研究表明,三矿沟铁铜矿床发育钙质夕卡岩矿物组合,其石榴子石主要为钙铝榴石和钙铁榴石,辉石为透辉石钙铁辉石系列,角闪石属于钙角闪石系列,绿泥石属于I型三八面体富铁绿泥石。石榴子石有3种类型：早期自形粗粒的钙铝榴石(Grt-Ia)和钙铁榴石(Grt-Ib),以及晚期呈脉状产出的钙铁榴石(Grt-Ⅱ)。夕卡岩阶段成矿流体具有高温、弱酸性、高氧逸度的特征;退夕卡岩阶段流体温度降低,pH升高,形成大量铁氧化物;石英硫化物阶段流体温度和氧逸度降低,金属硫化物沉淀。