Titanium in phengite: a geobarometer for high temperature eclogites

Phengite chemistry has been investigated in experiments on a natural SiO2-TiO2-saturated greywacke and a natural SiO2-TiO2-Al2SiO5-saturated pelite, at 1.5-8.0GPa and 800-1,050°C. High Ti-contents (0.3-3.7 wt %), Ti-enrichment with temperature, and a strong inverse correlation of Ti-content with pressure are the important features of both experimental series. The changes in composition with pressure result from the Tschermak substitution (Si+R2+=AlIV+AlVI) coupled with the substitution: AlVI+Si=Ti+AlIV. The latter exchange is best described using the end-member Ti-phengite (KMgTi[Si3Al]O10(OH)2, TiP). In the rutile-quartz/coesite saturated experiments, the aluminoceladonite component increases with pressure while the muscovite, paragonite and Ti-phengite components decrease. A thermodynamic model combining data obtained in this and previous experimental studies are derived to use the equilibrium MgCel+Rt=TiP+Cs/Qz as a thermobarometer in felsic and basic rocks. Phengite, rutile and quartz/coesite are common phases in HT-(U)HP metamorphic rocks, and are often preserved from regression by entrapment in zircon or garnet, thus providing an opportunity to determine the T-P conditions of crystallization of these rocks. Two applications on natural examples (Sulu belt and Kokchetav massif) are presented and discussed. This study demonstrates that Ti is a significant constituent of phengites that could have significant effects on phase relationships and melting rates with decreasing P or increasing T in the continental crus

Multilevel Modular Mesocrystalline Organization in Red Coral

International audienceBiominerals can achieve complex shapes as aggregates of crystalline building blocks. In the red coral skeleton, we observe that these building blocks are arranged into eight hierarchical levels of similarly (but not identically) oriented modules. The modules in each hierarchical level assemble into larger units that comprise the next higher level of the hierarchy, and consist themselves of smaller, oriented modules. EBSD and TEM studies show that the degree of crystallographic misorientation between the building blocks decreases with decreasing module size. We observe this organization down to a few nm. Thus, the transition from imperfect crystallographic order at mm scale to nearly perfect single crystalline domains at nm scale is progressive. The concept of 'mesocrystal' involves the three-dimensional crystallographic organization of nanoparticles into a highly ordered mesostructure. We add to this concept the notion of 'multilevel modularity'. This modularity has potential implications for the origin of complex biomineral shapes in nature. A multilevel modular organization with small intermodular misorientations combines a simple construction scheme, ruled by crystallographic laws, with the possibility of complex shapes. If the observations we have made on red coral extend to other biominerals, long-range crystallographic order and interfaces at all scales may be key to how some biominerals achieve complex shapes adapted to the environment in which they grow

Geochemistry of crustally derived leucocratic igneous rocks from the Ulugh Muztagh Area, Northern Tibet and their implications for the formation of the Tibetan Plateau

This is the published version. Copyright 2012 American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.Igneous rocks collected from the Ulugh Muztagh, 200 km south of the northern rim of the Tibetan Plateau (36°28′N, 87°29′E), form intrusive and extrusive bodies whose magmas were produced by partial melting of upper-crustal, primarily pelitic, source rocks. Evidence for source composition includes high initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios (∼0.711 to 0.713), 206Pb/204Pb ratios of 18.72, 207Pb/204Pb of 15.63 and 208Pb/204Pb of 38.73. The degree of melting in the source region was increased by significant heating via in situ decay of radioactive nuclides; a reasonable estimate for the heat production rate in the source is 3.9×10−6 W/m3. The crystallization ages and cooling ages [Burchfiel et al., 1989] of the earliest intrusive rocks within the suite suggest crustal thickening began in the northern Tibetan Plateau before 10.5 Ma, with maximum average unroofing rates in this part of the Tibetan Plateau for the period between 10.5 and 4 Ma at approximately < 2 mm/yr. The Ulugh Muztagh flows are at the northern edge of a widely distributed field of Plio-pliestocene volcanic rocks in the north-central Tibetan Plateau. The crustally derived rocks described here are an endmember component of a wide mixing zone of hybrid magmas; the other end-member forms mantle-derived, potassic basanites and tephrites exposed in the central section of the Plio-Pleistocene field. The compositional trends in these belts strike east-west, at high angle to the N30E strike of the Plateau itself. Consideration of the chemical data and published geophysical data argue that the sub-Plateau mantle is mechanically detached from the overlying continental lithosphère, and that in this section of the plateau the thermal structure of the asthenosphere is not responsible for the formation or maintenance of the plateau's topography

Cosmological effects of scalar-photon couplings: dark energy and varying-α models

We study cosmological models involving scalar fields coupled to radiation and discuss their effect on the redshift evolution of the cosmic microwave background temperature, focusing on links with varying fundamental constants and dynamical dark energy. We quantify how allowing for the coupling of scalar fields to photons, and its important effect on luminosity distances, weakens current and future constraints on cosmological parameters. In particular, for evolving dark energy models, joint constraints on the dark energy equation of state combining BAO radial distance and SN luminosity distance determinations, will be strongly dominated by BAO. Thus, to fully exploit future SN data one must also independently constrain photon number non-conservation arising from the possible coupling of SN photons to the dark energy scalar field. We discuss how observational determinations of the background temper- ature at different redshifts can, in combination with distance measures data, set tight constraints on interactions between scalar fields and photons, thus breaking this degeneracy. We also discuss prospects for future improvements, particularly in the context of Euclid and the E-ELT and show that Euclid can, even on its own, provide useful dark energy constraints while allowing for photon number non-conservation

Dark energy survey year 1 results: The lensing imprint of cosmic voids on the cosmic microwave background

Cosmic voids gravitationally lens the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, resulting in a distinct imprint on degree scales. We use the simulated CMB lensing convergence map from the Marenostrum Institut de Ciencias de l’Espai (MICE) N-body simulation to calibrate our detection strategy for a given void definition and galaxy tracer density. We then identify cosmic voids in Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 1 data and stack the Planck 2015 lensing convergence map on their locations, probing the consistency of simulated and observed void lensing signals. When fixing the shape of the stacked convergence profile to that calibrated from simulations, we find imprints at the 3σ significance level for various analysis choices. The best measurement strategies based on the MICE calibration process yield S/N ≈ 4 for DES Y1, and the best-fitting amplitude recovered from the data is consistent with expectations from MICE (A ≈ 1). Given these results as well as the agreement between them and N-body simulations, we conclude that the previously reported excess integrated Sachs–Wolfe (ISW) signal associated with cosmic voids in DES Y1 has no counterpart in the Planck CMB lensing map

Cosmic Shear in Harmonic Space from the Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Data: Compatibility with Configuration Space Results

We perform a cosmic shear analysis in harmonic space using the first year of data collected by the Dark Energy Survey (DES-Y1). We measure the cosmic weak lensing shear power spectra using the Metacalibration catalogue and perform a likelihood analysis within the framework of CosmoSIS. We set scale cuts based on baryonic effects contamination and model redshift and shear calibration uncertainties as well as intrinsic alignments. We adopt as fiducial covariance matrix an analytical computation accounting for the mask geometry in the Gaussian term, including non-Gaussian contributions. A suite of 1200 lognormal simulations is used to validate the harmonic space pipeline and the covariance matrix. We perform a series of stress tests to gauge the robustness of the harmonic space analysis. Finally, we use the DES-Y1 pipeline in configuration space to perform a similar likelihood analysis and compare both results, demonstrating their compatibility in estimating the cosmological parameters $S_8$, $\sigma_8$ and $\Omega_m$. The methods implemented and validated in this paper will allow us to perform a consistent harmonic space analysis in the upcoming DES data.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures. This version matches the published on