Search results for "Surface Processes"
showing 10 items of 1294 documents
Climate signatures on decadal to interdecadal time scales as obtained from mollusk shells (Arctica islandica) from Iceland
2013
Abstract Pronounced decadal climate oscillations are detected in a multi-centennial record based on shell growth rates of the marine bivalve mollusk, Arctica islandica, from Iceland. The corresponding analysis of patterns in sea level pressure and temperature exhibit large-scale teleconnections with North Atlantic climate quantities. We find that the record projects onto blocking situations in the northern North Atlantic. The associated circulation shows a low-pressure signature over Greenland and the Labrador Sea and a high-pressure system over Western Europe associated with northeasterly flow towards Iceland and weakening in the westerly zonal flow over Europe. It can be speculated that s…
Geoarchaeological evidence of marshland destruction in the area of Rungholt, present-day Wadden Sea around Hallig Südfall (North Frisia, Germany), by…
2018
Abstract Geophysical and geoarchaeological investigations were carried out in the Wadden Sea of North Frisia (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany) to elucidate major environmental changes that considerably altered the coastal landscape since medieval times. Between the 12 th and 14 th cent. AD, the present-day tidal flats around the marsh island Hallig Sudfall belonged to the historical Edomsharde district and its main settlement Rungholt . For North Frisia, it is well known that during medieval and early modern times, extreme storm surges caused major land losses associated with a massive landward shift of the coastline. Today, cultural traces like remains of dikes, drainage ditches, terps or even…
Quaternary development and evolution of the sedimentary environments in the Central Mediterranean Spanish coast
1995
Abstract The reconstruction of the evolutive phases of the Mediterranean Spanish Central sector during the Late Quaternary is the aim of this work. From geomorphological, sedimentological and chronometrical studies, different morphostratigraphic units are determined. Results point out the development of several transgressive phases. The older one go back to isotope stage 7. The Eemian transgression is broadly recorded, and its coastline was near the present one. During the Flandrian episode, the sea surpassed the current coastline in the northern coastal plain, while in the meridional littoral erosive notches were formed between +1 and +2 m. During the regressive events, we find the prograd…
Yttrium and REE signature recognized in Central Mediterranean Sea (ODP Site 963) during the MIS 6–MIS 5 transition
2010
Abstract The Mediterranean Sea acts as a miniature ocean with the development of its own conveyor belt. It constitutes an ideal location to study and forecast how the marine environment responds to rapid climatic change. Here we present a palaeoenvironmental study carried out on the sediments of ODP Site 963, recovered in the Sicily Channel, the sill which divides the western from the eastern Mediterranean basin. We focused on the transition between the penultimate glacial (MIS 6) and the last interglacial (MIS 5), between approximately 130 and 115 kyr BP. A novel approach is proposed, taking into account centennial-scale geochemical data on major elements, selected trace elements, and yttr…
Archaean and Palaeoproterozoic gneisses reworked during a Neoproterozoic (Pan-African) high-grade event in the Mozambique belt of East Africa: Struct…
2006
Abstract This study presents new zircon ages and Sm–Nd whole-rock isotopic compositions for high-grade gneisses from the Udzungwa Mountain area in the central part of the Mozambique belt, Tanzania. The study area comprises a succession of layered granulite-facies para- and orthogneisses, mostly retrograded to amphibolite-facies. The original intrusive contacts became obscured or severely modified during non-coaxial ductile deformation, and extensive shearing occurred during retrogression. Structures reflecting the early deformational history were mostly obscured when the rocks were transported into the lower crust as documented by severe flattening. Only the fragmented gneisses in the easte…
Single zircon ages for felsic to intermediate rocks from the Pietersburg and Giyani greenstone belts and bordering granitoid orthogneisses, northern …
2000
Abstract Previous models for the temporal evolution of greenstone belts and surrounding granitoid gneisses in the northern Kaapvaal Craton can be revised on the basis of new single zircon ages, obtained by conventional UPb dating and PbPb evaporation. In the Pietersburg greenstone belt, zircons from a metaquartz porphyry of the Ysterberg Formation yielded an age of 2949.7±0.2 Ma, while a granite intruding the greenstones, and deformed together with them, has an age of 2853 + 19/−18 Ma. These data show felsic volcanism in this belt to have been coeval with felsic volcanism in the Murchison belt farther east, and the date of ∼2853 Ma provides an older age limit for deformation in the region…
Zircon ages for a felsic volcanic rock and arc-related early Palaeozoic sediments on the margin of the Baydrag microcontinent, central Asian orogenic…
2011
Abstract Magmatic zircons from the basal part of an arc terrane in the accretionary complex NE of the Baydrag microcontinental block in central Mongolia were dated at 544 ± 7 Ma and reflect arc magmatism at the Ediacaran/Cambrian boundary. Detrital zircon ages for clastic metasediments of the adjacent Dzag zone suggest a depositional age
Non-explosive, dome-forming eruptions at Mt. Taranaki, New Zealand
2012
Abstract Volcanic domes may be emplaced rapidly and with few hazardous consequences, even at the summit of large stratovolcanoes. In this study the most recent activity of Mt. Taranaki in New Zealand is shown to have been a passive effusion of a c. 5.9 million m3 lava dome with minor associated explosions and little syn-eruptive hazard. This event, the Sisters eruption, appears to have been unrecorded by local indigenous populations but likely occurred between A.D. 1785 and 1820. The magma erupted is chemically distinct from the preceding A.D. 1755 Tahurangi eruption. Based on breakdown of hornblende crystal rims, the Sisters magma was probably only four days outside the hornblende stabilit…
Assessing dye-tracer technique for rill flow velocity measurements
2018
Abstract Rill erosion is considered one of the most important processes affecting soil because of the large amount of soil loss. The rill network acts as sediment source and is able to transport both rill flow-detached particles and those delivered from the interrill areas. Small flow depth in a rill and steep slope values of its bed affect significantly flow hydraulics. When rill flow velocity is measured using a dye-tracing method, the mean velocity is calculated by multiplying the measured surface velocity of the leading edge of the tracer plume by a correction factor. The main uncertainty of the dye-tracing technique stands in the relationship between mean and surface flow velocity. In …
Palaeomagnetism of the central Cuban Cretaceous Arc sequences and geodynamic implications
2009
Abstract A detailed palaeomagnetic study of Cretaceous age volcanic and sedimentary arc rocks from central Cuba has been carried out. Samples from 32 sites (12 localities) were subjected to detailed demagnetisation experiments. Nineteen sites from the Los Paso, Matagua, Provincial and Cabaiguan Formations yielded high unblocking temperature, dual polarity directions of magnetisation which pass the fold tests with confidence levels of 95% or more and are considered to be primary in origin. The palaeomagnetic inclinations are equivalent to palaeolatitudes of 9°N for the Aptian, 18°N for the Albian. A synfolding remanence identified in 5 sites from the younger Hilario Formation indicates a lat…