In-Situ K-Ar Dating Based on UV-Laser Ablation Coupled with a LIBS-QMS System Development, Calibration and Application

Absolute age determination isnecessary to check and calibratethe relative Martian chronologypresently available from meteoriticcrater counting

Assessment of physical, environmental, and cardiac strain in 43 operators (wearing protective equipment) conducting clean-up of heavy oil products

Background. The aim of the study was to organise an assessment of the physical strains and environmental exposure to hydrocarbon derivatives in persons involved in shoreline clean-up of heavy oil products, in order to investigate the dangers of oil spill clean-up. Material and methods. Forty-three healthy volunteers wearing protective equipment cleaning up an artificial shoreline underwent cardiac strain measurements, as well as a study of thermal stress (approximate WBGT index, water loss, measurement of internal body temperature before and after physical activity). A subjective assessment of perceived exertion was correlated to articular strain indicators recorded for the weight of loads lifted, movement frequency, and the range of movement. Environmental exposure was determined by using portable hydrocarbon detectors. Results. For adult subjects in good physical condition, in neutral temperatures, oil spill clean-up is considered non-arduous. However, in sedentary, stressed subjects exposed to difficult climatic conditions, cleanup can be considered hard to extremely hard. In terms of environmental exposure, slight traces of toluene appeared once out of a total of 18 analysed samples. Conclusions. The sample studied was subject to physical articular strains and presented variable cardiac strain; environmental exposure was, on the other hand, slight when involving cleaning up heavy petroleum products. The subjects liable to carry out this activity are more tolerant to the efforts required when they are healthy, fit, young adults, in the non-arduous thermal conditions recorded in this study

New Paleomagnetic results and evidence for a geomagnetic field excursion during the pleistocene-holocene transition at Pichincha province, Ecuador

Paleomagnetic data from three sedimentary sections in Pichincha province -Quito City (QC), Mullimica (Mu) and El Tingo (ET)- Ecuador (northwestern South America) are reported. Analysis of natural remanent magnetization directions obtained from 109 oriented samples taken at 4 sites, shows that some samples recorded a magnetic component different from the normal present geomagnetic field (GMF). The characteristic remanent magnetization (ChRM) was determined by progressive AF demagnetization. The analysis shows that the sections recorded ChRM of normal, intermediate and reverse polarities during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and Holocene. Normal directions were recorded in QC, while normal and intermediate polarity directions at Mu and, reverse VGPs at ET. QC and the upper portion of Mu correspond to the paleosecular variation Holocene record for Ecuador during the ~≤4.7 ka BP. On the other hand, the lower portion of Mu logs represents the transition from normal to intermediate directions occurring at ~≥5.6 ka BP. Sites from ET recorded two stable oblique reverse records with a large fluctuation far from the present GMF at ~10.5 ka BP. The transitional virtual geomagnetic poles generally agree with those registered during the possible Pleistocene-Holocene excursion observed in other places of the planet. When plotted in a present world map, VGPs calculated from normal samples at QC are very well clustered in Northern North America, Greenland and Northern Europe; most VGP´s calculated from Mu are situated between 30 and 60 northern latitude in Northern North America, Greenland, western Europe, Africa and North Pacific Ocean. Interestingly, the majority of the reverse directions from ET conforms a patch located in southern Africa, and a few ones are situated in central Africa, eastern Australia and Antarctica. An Ecuadorian paleopole was calculated with data resulting from QC and Mu. Also other paleopoles of the same age were processed from other North and South American sites. Remarkably they agree well, although they do not agree with the geographical pole showing ~15° angular difference in relation to the rotation´s axis of the Earth. Finally, is discussed the hypothesis of the global excursional state of the GMF during the last ~11.0 ka BP and the potential use as dating tool the excursion dated at 10.5 ka BP.Fil: Nami, Hugo Gabriel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Geociencias Básicas, Aplicadas y Ambientales de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ciencias Geológicas; Argentin

Evidence for coeval Late Triassic terrestrial impacts from the Rochechouart (France) meteorite crater

High temperature impact melt breccias from the Rochechouart (France) meteorite crater record magnetization component with antipodal, normal and reverse polarities. The corresponding paleomagnetic pole for this component lies between the 220 Ma and 210 Ma reference poles on the Eurasian apparent polar wander path, consistent with the 214 $\pm$ 8 Ma 40Ar/39Ar age of the crater. Late Triassic tectonic reconstructions of the Eurasian and North American plates place this pole within 95% confidence limits of the paleomagnetic pole from the Manicouagan (Canada) meteorite impact crater, which is dated at 214 $\pm$ 1 Ma. Together, these observations reinforce the hypothesis of a Late Triassic, multiple meteorite impact event on Earth

Sedimentation rates in the Makarov Basin, central Arctic Ocean: A paleomagnetic and rock magnetic approach

Three long sediment cores from the Makarov Basin have been subjected to detailed paleomagnetic and rock magnetic analyses. Investigated sediments are dominated by normal polarity including short reversal excursions, indicating that most of the sediments are of Brunhes age. In general, the recovered sediments show only low to moderate variability in concentration and grain size of the remanence-carrying minerals. Estimations of relative paleointensity variations yielded a well-documented succession of pronounced lows and highs that could be correlated to published reference curves. However, together with five accelerator mass spectrometry C-14 ages and an incomplete Be-10 record, still two different interpretations of the paleomagnetic data are possible, with long-term sedimentation rates of either 1.3 or 4 cm kyr(-1) However, both models implicate highly variable sedimentation rates of up to 10 cm kyr(-1), and abrupt changes in rock magnetic parameters might even indicate several hiatuses

Geomagnetic field inclinations for the past 400 kyr from the 1-km core of the Hawaii Scientific Drilling Project

A volcanic record of geomagnetic field inclination for the past ∼400 kyr at Hilo, Hawaii, has been obtained from the 941.5 m of core recovered by the Hawaii Scientific Drilling Project. The analysis of 195 lava flows reveals six instances of near-zero inclination and two instances of fully negative inclination (reverse polarity) within an otherwise normal-polarity core. In particular, flow unit 23 (∼178 m depth) records a horizontal inclination and may be associated with the Laschamp event; flow units 40 and 42 (∼260 m depth) record negative inclinations and are close in age to the Blake event; and flow unit 55 (∼320 m depth) records a negative inclination with a relative declination change of ∼75° with respect to the overlying flow and is probably the Jamaica/Biwa I/Pringle Falls event. The five instances of shallow inclination found below 400 m depth appear to have resulted from long-term secular variation as they are part of inclination swings between ∼0° and ∼60° with a periodicity of ∼10–50 kyr. In contrast, the inclination shifts at ∼178 m and ∼320 m depths significantly deviate from long-term trends, suggesting the existence of at least two independent processes producing time variations of the geomagnetic field. The secular variation has a mean of 30.9° (α_(95) = 2.27°), which is significantly shallower than the expected dipole mean of 36°. The dispersion (σ = 12.5°) agrees with global paleosecular variation data for 0–5 Ma and secular variation models

Oligo-Miocene magnetostratigraphy and rock magnetism of the Xishuigou section, Subei (Gansu Province, western China) and implications for shallow inclinations in central Asia.

Magnetostratigraphy of 222 remanent directions together with late Oligocene to early Miocene mammal and charophyte paleontology suggest that 2179 m of the Xishuigou section (Subei, Gansu Province, China) were deposited from ~26 to ~19 Ma. Stratigraphic patterns of bulk susceptibility, anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility parameters, and natural and anhysteretic remanent magnetization intensities demonstrate that (1) faulting does not significantly affect the record, (2) sediment deposition was relatively continuous, (3) sediment source changed around 23 Ma, and (4) rapid uplift near Subei occurred at 21 Ma. Subei rotated 27° ± 5° counterclockwise with respect to the 20 Ma pole from the Eurasian synthetic apparent polar wander path. Folding and rotation of the section took place after 19 Ma. The paleolatitude of Subei is 14° less than at present and 19° ± 3° less than predicted from the reference pole. Both rock magnetic and paleomagnetic data sets suggest that the unusually low paleolatitude is the result of synsedimentary inclination shallowing, a phenomenon which has likely affected other paleomagnetic data from central Asia

Late Cretaceous (~81Ma) high-temperature metamorphism in the southeastern Lhasa terrane: implication for the Neo-Tethys ocean ridge subduction.

An integrated study of U-Pb zircon dating, geochemical and Sr-Nd-Hf isotopic compositions of garnet-bearing granulite and marble from the granulite-facies domain of the Nyingchi Complex (eastern Himalayan syntaxis) has provided insights into the tectonic evolution of the southern Lhasa terrane. The peak metamorphism of the garnet-bearing granulite is marked by a mineral assemblage of garnet + orthopyroxene + high-Ti amphibole + plagioclase + quartz + rutile. Abundant exsolved rutile needles are observed within amphibole, garnet and quartz. The peak metamorphic temperatures are estimated at 803–924 °C. Geochemical data from the garnet-bearing granulites provide evidence for a basaltic protolith that formed in a continental-margin arc setting. Sr-Nd-Hf isotopic compositions indicate that this protolith was sourced from partial melting of a depleted mantle. LA-ICP MS U-Pb zircon dating shows that the protolith age and metamorphic age of the garnet-bearing granulites are 89.3 ± 0.6 Ma and 81.1 ± 0.8 Ma, respectively. The detrital magmatic zircons from the marble yield ages from 86.3 to 167 Ma. The age distribution and Hf isotopic composition (εHf(t) = + 5.9 to + 17.5) of the detrital magmatic zircon in the marble are consistent with the isotopic data of zircons from the Jurassic–Cretaceous Gangdese batholiths, suggesting that the clastic sediments were partially derived from these intrusives or associated volcanic rocks, and deposited in the fore-arc basin of the Gangdese arc. The metamorphic zircons in the marble yield a metamorphic age of 81.4 ± 0.5 Ma. These results show that both the arc magmatic rocks and forearc sedimentary rocks underwent high-temperature (HT) granulite-facies metamorphism at ~ 81 Ma, indicating anomalously high heat input in the forearc region. A range of tectonic observations, including a coeval hiatus in arc magmatism and a period of regional uplift, indicate that HT metamorphism resulted from the subduction of the Neo-Tethys ocean ridge beneath the southern Lhasa terrane during the Late Cretaceous