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Compositional Trend (compositional + trend)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Earth and Environmental Science75%

Selected Abstracts

Petrography, mineralogy, and trace element geochemistry of lunar meteorite Dhofar 1180

METEORITICS & PLANETARY SCIENCE, Issue 9 2009
Aicheng Zhang
Dhofar 1180 is predominantly composed of fine-grained matrix with abundant mineral fragments and a few lithic and glassy clasts. Lithic clasts show a variety of textures including cataclastic, gabbroic, granulitic, ophitic/subophitic, and microporphyritic. Both feldspathic and mafic lithic clasts are present. Most feldspathic lithic clasts have a strong affinity to ferroan anorthositic suite rocks and one to magnesian suite rocks. Mafic lithic clasts are moderately to extremely Fe-rich. The Ti/[Ti+Cr]-Fe/[Fe+Mg] compositional trend of pyroxenes in mafic lithic clasts is consistent with that of low-Ti mare basalts. Glasses display a wide chemical variation from mafic to feldspathic. Some glasses are very similar to those from Apollo 16 soils. KREEP components are essentially absent in Dhofar 1180. One glassy clast is rich in K, REE and P, but its Mg/[Mg+Fe] is very low (0.25). It is probably a last-stage differentiation product of mare basalt. Molar Fe/Mn ratios of both olivine and pyroxene are essentially consistent with a lunar origin. Dhofar 1180 has a LREE-enriched (La 18 × CI, Sm 14 × CI) pattern with a small positive Eu anomaly (Eu 15 × CI). Th concentration is 0.7 ppm in Dhofar 1180. Petrography, mineralogy, and trace element geochemistry of Dhofar 1180 are different from those of other lunar meteorites, indicating that Dhofar 1180 represents a unique mingled lunar breccia derived from an area on the lunar nearside but far away from the center of the Imbrium Basin. [source]

Provenance of siliciclastic and hybrid turbiditic arenites of the Eocene Hecho Group, Spanish Pyrenees: implications for the tectonic evolution of a foreland basin

BASIN RESEARCH, Issue 2 2010
M. A. Caja
ABSTRACT The Eocene Hecho Group turbidite system of the Aínsa-Jaca foreland Basin (southcentral Pyrenees) provides an excellent opportunity to constrain compositional variations within the context of spatial and temporal distribution of source rocks during tectonostratigraphic evolution of foreland basins. The complex tectonic setting necessitated the use of petrographic, geochemical and multivariate statistical techniques to achieve this goal. The turbidite deposits comprise four unconformity-bounded tectonostratigraphic units (TSU), consisting of quartz-rich and feldspar-poor sandstones, calclithites rich in extrabasinal carbonates and hybrid arenites dominated by intrabasinal carbonates. The sandstones occur exclusively in TSU-2, whereas calclithites and hybrid arenites occur in the overlying TSU-3, TSU-4 and TSU-5. The calclithites were deposited at the base of each TSU and hybrid arenites in the uppermost parts. Extrabasinal carbonate sources were derived from the fold-and-thrust belt (mainly Cretaceous and Palaeocene limestones). Conversely, intrabasinal carbonate grains were sourced from foramol shelf carbonate factories. This compositional trend is attributed to alternating episodes of uplift and thrust propagation (siliciclastic and extrabasinal carbonates supplies) and subsequent episodes of development of carbonate platforms supplying intrabasinal detrital grains. The quartz-rich and feldspar-poor composition of the sandstones suggests derivation from intensely weathered cratonic basement rocks during the initial fill of the foreland basin. Successive sediments (calclithites and hybrid arenites) were derived from older uplifted basement rocks (feldspar-rich and, to some extent, rock fragments-rich sandstones), thrust-and-fold belt deposits and from coeval carbonate platforms developed at the basin margins. This study demonstrates that the integration of tectono-stratigraphy, petrology and geochemistry of arenites provides a powerful tool to constrain the spatial and temporal variation in provenance during the tectonic evolution of foreland basins. [source]

Exhumation paths of high-pressure metapelites obtained from local equilibria for chlorite,phengite assemblages

GEOLOGICAL JOURNAL, Issue 3-4 2000
O. Vidal
Abstract The compositional variation of phengite and chlorite pairs in rocks sampled across the metamorphic zonation of three different blueschist belts (Cycladic, Sambagawa and Schistes Lustrés) is characterized from the regional to the thin-section scale. The different sample suites show different compositional trends, but similar trends are observed at the regional and thin-section scale in the same unit. At the thin-section scale, several local chlorite,phengite equilibria involving minerals of different compositions can be identified. These observations suggest that at temperature T <,,550°C, equilibration of chlorite and phengite compositions with varying pressure and temperature is controlled by crystallization/recrystallization processes rather than by changing the composition of older grains by lattice diffusion. In some instances, the relative time of growth of the different phyllosilicate generations can be determined using microstructural criteria. The observed compositional variations are interpreted and quantified in terms of pressure (P) and temperature (T) variations using new thermodynamic solution models accounting for the Tschermak, di/trioctahedral, and pyrophyllitic substitutions. Chlorite,phengite local equilibria constrain the shape of the exhumation P,T paths of the rocks under consideration. The assemblage chlorite,phengite,paragonite,albite,quartz,H2O can be used to constrain different P,T paths for Tinos and Sambagawa blueschists. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Importance of predecessor basin history on sedimentary fill of a retroarc foreland basin: provenance analysis of the Cretaceous Magallanes basin, Chile (50,52°S)

BASIN RESEARCH, Issue 5 2010
B. W. Romans
ABSTRACT An integrated provenance analysis of the Upper Cretaceous Magallanes retroarc foreland basin of southern Chile (50°30,,52°S) provides new constraints on source area evolution, regional patterns of sediment dispersal and depositional age. Over 450 new single-grain detrital-zircon U-Pb ages, which are integrated with sandstone petrographic and mudstone geochemical data, provide a comprehensive detrital record of the northern Magallanes foreland basin-filling succession (>4000-m-thick). Prominent peaks in detrital-zircon age distribution among the Punta Barrosa, Cerro Toro, Tres Pasos and Dorotea Formations indicate that the incorporation and exhumation of Upper Jurassic igneous rocks (ca. 147,155 Ma) into the Andean fold-thrust belt was established in the Santonian (ca. 85 Ma) and was a significant source of detritus to the basin by the Maastrichtian (ca. 70 Ma). Sandstone compositional trends indicate an increase in volcanic and volcaniclastic grains upward through the basin fill corroborating the interpretation of an unroofing sequence. Detrital-zircon ages indicate that the Magallanes foredeep received young arc-derived detritus throughout its ca. 20 m.y. filling history, constraining the timing of basin-filling phases previously based only on biostratigraphy. Additionally, spatial patterns of detrital-zircon ages in the Tres Pasos and Dorotea Formations support interpretations that they are genetically linked depositional systems, thus demonstrating the utility of provenance indicators for evaluating stratigraphic relationships of diachronous lithostratigraphic units. This integrated provenance dataset highlights how the sedimentary fill of the Magallanes basin is unique among other retroarc foreland basins and from the well-studied Andean foreland basins farther north, which is attributed to nature of the predecessor rift and backarc basin. [source]