Subduction initiation and back-arc opening north of Neo-Tethys: Evidence from the Late Cretaceous Torbat-e-Heydarieh ophiolite of NE Iran

How new subduction zones form is an ongoing scientific question with key implications for our understanding of how this process influences the behavior of the overriding plate. Here we focus on the effects of a Late Cretaceous subduction-initiation (SI) event in Iran and show how SI caused enough extension to open a back-arc basin in NE Iran. The Late Cretaceous Torbat-e-Heydarieh ophiolite (THO) is well exposed as part of the Sabzevar-Torbat-e-Heydarieh ophiolite belt. It is dominated by mantle peridotite, with a thin crustal sequence. The THO mantle sequence consists of harzburgite, clinopyroxene-harzburgite, plagioclase lherzolite, impregnated lherzolite, and dunite. Spinel in THO mantle peridotites show variable Cr# (10−63), similar to both abyssal and fore-arc peridotites. The igneous rocks (gabbros and dikes intruding mantle peridotite, pillowed and massive lavas, amphibole gabbros, plagiogranites and associated diorites, and diabase dikes) display rare earth element patterns similar to MORB, arc tholeiite and back-arc basin basalt. Zircons from six samples, including plagiogranites and dikes within mantle peridotite, yield U-Pb ages of ca. 99−92 Ma, indicating that the THO formed during the Late Cretaceous and was magmatically active for ∼7 m.y. THO igneous rocks have variable εNd(t) of +5.7 to +8.2 and εHf(t) ranging from +14.9 to +21.5; zircons have εHf(t) of +8.1 to +18.5. These isotopic compositions indicate that the THO rocks were derived from an isotopically depleted mantle source similar to that of the Indian Ocean, which was slightly affected by the recycling of subducted sediments. We conclude that the THO and other Sabzevar-Torbat-e-Heydarieh ophiolites formed in a back-arc basin well to the north of the Late Cretaceous fore-arc, now represented by the Zagros ophiolites, testifying that a broad region of Iran was affected by upper-plate extension accompanying Late Cretaceous subduction initiation

Search for Gravitational Waves from Intermediate Mass Binary Black Holes

We present the results of a weakly modeled burst search for gravitational waves from mergers of non-spinning intermediate mass black holes (IMBH) in the total mass range 100--450 solar masses and with the component mass ratios between 1:1 and 4:1. The search was conducted on data collected by the LIGO and Virgo detectors between November of 2005 and October of 2007. No plausible signals were observed by the search which constrains the astrophysical rates of the IMBH mergers as a function of the component masses. In the most efficiently detected bin centered on 88+88 solar masses, for non-spinning sources, the rate density upper limit is 0.13 per Mpc^3 per Myr at the 90% confidence level.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures: data for plots and archived public version at https://dcc.ligo.org/cgi-bin/DocDB/ShowDocument?docid=62326, see also the public announcement at http://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-S5IMBH

Repositioning of the global epicentre of non-optimal cholesterol

High blood cholesterol is typically considered a feature of wealthy western countries1,2. However, dietary and behavioural determinants of blood cholesterol are changing rapidly throughout the world3 and countries are using lipid-lowering medications at varying rates. These changes can have distinct effects on the levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol, which have different effects on human health4,5. However, the trends of HDL and non-HDL cholesterol levels over time have not been previously reported in a global analysis. Here we pooled 1,127 population-based studies that measured blood lipids in 102.6 million individuals aged 18 years and older to estimate trends from 1980 to 2018 in mean total, non-HDL and HDL cholesterol levels for 200 countries. Globally, there was little change in total or non-HDL cholesterol from 1980 to 2018. This was a net effect of increases in low- and middle-income countries, especially in east and southeast Asia, and decreases in high-income western countries, especially those in northwestern Europe, and in central and eastern Europe. As a result, countries with the highest level of non-HDL cholesterol—which is a marker of cardiovascular risk—changed from those in western Europe such as Belgium, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Malta in 1980 to those in Asia and the Pacific, such as Tokelau, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand. In 2017, high non-HDL cholesterol was responsible for an estimated 3.9 million (95% credible interval 3.7 million–4.2 million) worldwide deaths, half of which occurred in east, southeast and south Asia. The global repositioning of lipid-related risk, with non-optimal cholesterol shifting from a distinct feature of high-income countries in northwestern Europe, north America and Australasia to one that affects countries in east and southeast Asia and Oceania should motivate the use of population-based policies and personal interventions to improve nutrition and enhance access to treatment throughout the world.</p

GW190814: gravitational waves from the coalescence of a 23 solar mass black hole with a 2.6 solar mass compact object

We report the observation of a compact binary coalescence involving a 22.2–24.3 Me black hole and a compact object with a mass of 2.50–2.67 Me (all measurements quoted at the 90% credible level). The gravitational-wave signal, GW190814, was observed during LIGO’s and Virgo’s third observing run on 2019 August 14 at 21:10:39 UTC and has a signal-to-noise ratio of 25 in the three-detector network. The source was localized to 18.5 deg2 at a distance of - + 241 45 41 Mpc; no electromagnetic counterpart has been confirmed to date. The source has the most unequal mass ratio yet measured with gravitational waves, - + 0.112 0.009 0.008, and its secondary component is either the lightest black hole or the heaviest neutron star ever discovered in a double compact-object system. The dimensionless spin of the primary black hole is tightly constrained to �0.07. Tests of general relativity reveal no measurable deviations from the theory, and its prediction of higher-multipole emission is confirmed at high confidence. We estimate a merger rate density of 1–23 Gpc−3 yr−1 for the new class of binary coalescence sources that GW190814 represents. Astrophysical models predict that binaries with mass ratios similar to this event can form through several channels, but are unlikely to have formed in globular clusters. However, the combination of mass ratio, component masses, and the inferred merger rate for this event challenges all current models of the formation and mass distribution of compact-object binaries

Open data from the third observing run of LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO

The global network of gravitational-wave observatories now includes five detectors, namely LIGO Hanford, LIGO Livingston, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO 600. These detectors collected data during their third observing run, O3, composed of three phases: O3a starting in 2019 April and lasting six months, O3b starting in 2019 November and lasting five months, and O3GK starting in 2020 April and lasting two weeks. In this paper we describe these data and various other science products that can be freely accessed through the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center at https://gwosc.org. The main data set, consisting of the gravitational-wave strain time series that contains the astrophysical signals, is released together with supporting data useful for their analysis and documentation, tutorials, as well as analysis software packages

In-situ Os isotopes in abyssal peridotites bridge the isotopic gap between MORBs and their source mantle

Abyssal peridotites are assumed to represent the mantle residue of mid-ocean-ridge basalts (MORBs). However, the osmium isotopic compositions of abyssal peridotites and MORB do not appear to be in equilibrium1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, raising questions about the cogenetic relationship between those two reservoirs. However, the cause of this isotopic mismatch is mainly due to a drastic filtering of the data based on the possibility of osmium contamination by sea water5. Here we present a detailed study of magmatic sulphides (the main carrier of osmium) in abyssal peridotites and show that the 187Os/188Os ratio of these sulphides is of primary mantle origin and can reach radiogenic values suggesting equilibrium with MORB. Thus, the effect of sea water on the osmium systematics of abyssal peridotites has been overestimated and consequently there is no true osmium isotopic gap between MORBs and abyssal peridotites