Search results for "Planetary Science"
showing 10 items of 4367 documents
Composition and provenance analysis of beach sands in an almost isolated sedimentary system – A field study of the Galápagos Archipelago
2021
The Galapagos Archipelago is the surface expression of an active hotspot or long-lived mantle plume. The Archipelago consists of a group of 13 main islands which are located in the eastern central Pacific Ocean about 1,000 km west of the northern edge of the South American continent, east of the East Pacific Rise and south of the Galapagos spreading center. Because of the large distance to the nearest continental land mass, Galapagos can be seen as an almost isolated sedimentary system. A provenance study conducted on samples collected from seventeen beaches on eleven islands, demonstrates that mineral grains and particles were derived from weathering of predominantly basaltic rocks and wer…
S, Cl and F degassing as an indicator of volcanic dynamics: The 2001 eruption of Mount Etna
2002
[1] The recent eruption of Mount Etna (July 2001) offered the opportunity to analyze magma-derived volatiles emitted during pre- and syn-eruptive phases, and to verify whether their composition is affected by changes in volcanic dynamics. This paper presents the results of analyses of F, Cl and S in the volcanic plume collected by filter-packs, and interprets variations in the composition based on contrasting solubility in magmas. A Rayleigh-type degassing mechanism was used to fit the acquired data and to estimate Henry's solubility constant ratios in Etnean basalt. This model provided insights into the dynamics of the volcano. Abundances of sulfur and halogens in eruptive plumes may help …
Generation of early Archaean felsic greenstone volcanic rocks through crustal melting in the Kaapvaal, craton, southern Africa
2013
Abstract High-potassium felsic volcanic rocks interlayered with basalt and komatiite in early Archaean greenstone sequences in the Barberton Greenstone Belt of South Africa and Swaziland, previously considered to be derived from melting of mafic precursors, are shown to be the result of melting of significantly older felsic crust. This is documented by a combination of SHRIMP zircon dating with Hf-in-zircon and whole-rock Lu–Hf and Sm–Nd isotopic data. Zircons from felsic rocks of the oldest Barberton unit, the 3.53 Ga Theespruit Formation, yielded predominantly negative e Hf ( t ) -values, whereas whole-rock e Hf ( t ) - and e Nd ( t ) -data are slightly negative to slightly positive. Simi…
Mesozoic volcanics of western sicily
1984
The Mesozoic lavas and minor intrusions in the thrust sheets of western Sicily have the following characteristics: 1. The lavas in the Triassic Mufara Formation in the north were broken into fragments which rotated independently within the incompetent strata that enclose them. This behavior is characteristic of igneous rocks found within the more internal (northerly) thrust units. 2. The Jurassic lavas in the more external (southerly) units have consistent directions which agree with those of the Ammonitico Rosso limestones in the same zone and lie about 30° clockwise from those of coeval autochthonous formations in Tunisia.Schult's presumed Cretaceous directions from Custonaci on the north…
Plume chemistry provides insights into mechanisms of sulfur and halogen degassing in basaltic volcanoes
2004
Abstract This paper deals with sulfur, chlorine and fluorine abundances in the eruptive volcanic plume of the huge October 2002–January 2003 eruption of Mount Etna, aiming at relating the relevant compositional variations observed throughout with changes in eruption dynamics and degassing mechanisms. The recurrent sampling of plume acidic volatiles by filter-pack methodology revealed that, during the study period, S/Cl and Cl/F ratios ranged from 0.1–6.8 and 0.9–5.6, respectively. Plume S/Cl ratios increased by a factor of ∼10 as volcanic activity drifted from paroxysmal lava fountaining (mid- and late November) to passive degassing and minor effusion (early January), and then decreased to …
Geochemical evolution of rift magmas by progressive tapping of a stratified mantle source beneath the Ross Sea Rift, Northern Victoria Land, Antarcti…
1995
Abstract Source compositions of Neogene-Quaternary volcanic rocks from the McMurdo Volcanic Group of the Ross Sea Rift in Northern Victoria Land, Antarctica are constrained by NdSrPb isotopes and trace element ratios in near-primary basalts. The rocks erupted along the western rift margin (Victoria Land Basin) and the western rift shoulder (Transantarctic Mountains). Near-primary basalts show no evidence of crustal contamination, suggesting that their initial NdSrPb isotopes reflect the composition of their mantle sources. The initial isotope ratios of near-primary basalts range from about 87 Sr 86 Sr = 0.70281 to 0.70504 and 143 Nd 144 Nd = 0.51269 to 0.51291 (ϵNd(t) = 1.3–5.5). The 20…
Rapid onset of mafic magmatism facilitated by volcanic edifice collapse: MAFIC MAGMATISM FACILITATED BY VOLCANIC EDIFICE COLLAPSE
2015
Volcanic edifice collapses generate some of Earth's largest landslides. How such unloading affects the magma storage systems is important for both hazard assessment and for determining long-term controls on volcano growth and decay. Here we present a detailed stratigraphic and petrological analyses of volcanic landslide and eruption deposits offshore Montserrat, in a subduction zone setting, sampled during Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 340. A large (6–10 km3) collapse of the Soufriere Hills Volcano at ~130 ka was followed by explosive basaltic volcanism and the formation of a new basaltic volcanic center, the South Soufriere Hills, estimated to have initiated <100 years after…
Investigation of the He solubility in H2O-CO2 bearing silicate liquids at moderate pressure: a new experimental method
2000
We have designed the first available experimental method capable to investigate the solubility of inert gases in H2O–CO2 bearing silicate melts in a large range of pressures. The method overcomes the difficulties imposed by the physical state of volatiles at room conditions. Experiments were done by using an internally heated pressure vessel, where sealed capsules containing the sample are introduced. The peculiarity of the method consists in the capability of loading, in accurately known proportions (even lower than ppm), volatiles in a gaseous state at room conditions. Gas is loaded as a weighed amount of a gas-bearing glass, which was previously prepared by using the same gas as a pressu…
Tectono-metamorphic evolution of the pre-Athabasca basement within the Wollaston-Mudjatik Transition zone, Saskatchewan
2016
The Paleoproterozoic tectono-metamorphic evolution of the pre-Athabasca basement (∼1.7 Ga) within the Wollaston–Mudjatik Transition Zone (WMTZ) (Saskatchewan, Canada) has been characterized using both exposed basement and drill cores from the Wolly–McClean exploration drilling project. The finite ductile strain pattern of the WMTZ results from the superposition of two tectono-metamorphic events M1–D1 and M2–D2. M1–D1 is associated with the development of a gently dipping foliation striking N90°–N100° and a southward decrease in peak pressures from up to 10 kbar (1 kbar = 100 MPa) in the Cochrane River area down to 6 kbar in the Wolly–McClean exploration drilling project. The M2–D2 event is…
Age and tectonic setting of granitoid gneisses in the Eastern Desert of Egypt and south-west Sinai
1994
Strongly deformed and locally migmatized gneisses occur at several places in the southern Eastern Desert of Egypt and in Sinai and have variously been interpreted as a basement to Pan-african (≈900 to 600 Ma) supracrustal and intrusive assemblages. A suite of grabbroic to granitic gneisses was investigated in the Hafafit area, which constitutes an I-type calc-alkaline intrusive assemblage whose chemistry suggests emplacement along an active continental margin and whose granitoid members can be correlated with the so-called ‘Older Granites’ of Egypt. 207Pb/206Pb single zircon evaporation from three samples of the Hafafit gneisses yielded protolith emplacement ages between 677 ± 9 and 700 ± 1…