The paleoenvironmental and thermal histories of the Permian Irati formation shale in the paraná basin, Brazil: An integrated approach based on mineralogical and organic imprints

ABSTRACT: Mineralogical assemblages and organofacies are important sources of information to recover the paleoenvironmental and thermal histories of shale deposits. In this study, a detailed qualitative and quantitative characterization of the Permian Irati Formation (Assistência Member) shale is based on mineralogical (XRD and SEM-EDS) and organic components (TOC, Rock-Eval pyrolysis, organofacies, TAI, fluorescence and vitrinite reflectance measurements) and provides integrated data about sediment provenance, depositional environment, diagenesis, and thermal history, while supporting interpretations on the Paraná Basin (PB), Brazil, paleogeography and its correlation to the southwest Gondwana. The results revealed a prevailing type I/II kerogen, with type III kerogen being also present but mainly confined along the paleoshoreline of the PB. The dominance of fluorescent amorphous organic matter (AOM) combined with framboidal pyrite suggests microbial activity in an anoxic-dysoxic neritic-marine paleoenvironment. Additionally, common to abundant well-preserved phytoclasts, as well as the occurrence of Botryococcus braunii, indicates freshwater influx in a brackish marine depositional setting. Immature to early-oil window thermal maturities prevail across the PB, according to the organic maturation indicators. The combined analysis between the organic matter evolution with clay mineralogy, such as the occurrence of interstratified clays (e.g., I/S) and its positive correlation with depth suggest that burial diagenesis reached the transition to early catagenesis on the north, southeast, and south of the basin, attributing a shale oil potential for the Irati Formation on a regional scale. Local scale imprints of the Early Cretaceous Paraná-Etendeka Large Igneous Province (LIP), and its thermal effect in the Irati Formation shale components, are recorded as clay authigenesis (e.g., smectite webby texture and clay coating development), crystallization of minerals by low to high-grade of thermal alteration (e.g., corrensite, talc, lizardite and diopside), and by local scale gas-window maturities. Such thermal alteration, identified in the proximity to intruded sills and dykes, led to a heterogeneous organic maturation pattern with implications on shale gas and shale oil potential of the Irati Formation shale, demonstrating that these subjects in the Paraná Basin should be assessed locally.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Functional antibodies against G-protein coupled receptors in Beagle dogs infected with two different strains of Trypanosoma cruzi

The interaction of the anti-beta1-adrenergic receptor autoantibodies (β1ARAb) and the anti-muscarinic M2 receptor autoantibodies (M2RAb) with cardiac neurotransmitter receptors were identified in human chronic Chagas cardiomyopathy (CCC) related to the ECG and dysautonomia disturbances. Dogs are considered gold model to the study of Trypanosoma cruzi infection due the clinical similarities with CCC. This study aims to evaluate whether anti-β1ARAb, anti-β2ARAb, and anti-muscarinic M2RAb are generated in Beagle dogs infected by T. cruzi using Y and Berenice-78 strains of T. cruzi. Animals were infected with 4.0 x 103 bloodstream trypomastigotes/kg of body weight and, after 25 months of infection, blood sample was collected, and serum stored at -80°C. Dog serum was treated by ammonium sulphate precipitation and the IgG antibodies isolated and added to the beating neonatal rats’ cardiomyocytes. All T. cruzi-infected dogs developed agonistic β1ARAb, β2ARAb, and M2RAb. Animals infected by Berenice strain presented less β2ARAb and M2RAb activities than dogs infected by Y strain of the parasite. In cardiomyocytes culture, the antibodies recognized an epitope on the second extracellular loop of the receptors which were similar to findings in human Chagas disease. There was no detection of antibody against G protein-coupled receptor in serum from uninfected dogs. In conclusion, both Y and Berenice-78 strains of T. cruzi induced dog antibodies, whose targets located in the second extracellular loop of the adrenergic and muscarinic receptors were similar to those observed in individuals with CCC. Therefore, our findings highlight dogs as a promisor model to investigate pathogenic roles of functional Ab against G-protein coupled receptors

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results