Deformation and diagenetic histories around foreland thrust faults

This thesis is concerned with the relationship between deformation and fluid flow along thrust zones. The study was carried out in the Vercors, French Sub-Alpine Chains foreland thrust belt. Study of the thermal alteration of organic matter within the area suggests that prior to west-north-west directed thrusting within the Vercors basin in post middle Miocene times, the rocks now exposed at the surface had not been buried beneath a large thickness of foredeep sediments and remained within the diagenetic realm. Deeper buried levels within the stratigraphy passed into the hydrocarbon generation window prior to thrusting within the Vercors basin. The rocks presently exposed at the surface also remained in the diagenetic realm during and after the thrusting which suggests that thrust sheet loading did not significantly contribute to thermal alteration of organic matter. The structures of the thrust belt may have been possible structural traps for any hydrocarbons which underwent re-migration during the thrusting. The structures have been exhumed by erosion during isostatic uplift. The Rencurel Thrust and overlying Rencurel Thrust Sheet were selected for special study as they are of regional structural importance. The thrust emplaces Urgonian limestones onto Miocene molasse sediments at present erosion levels. The thrust sheet is internally deformed by thrusts and folds. Structural data indicate that the deformation within the thrust sheet and within the Rencurel Thrust Zone occurred during one kinematically linked phase of thrusting. The Rencurel Thrust Zone itself is around 100 metres thick. The higher part of the thrust zone is composed of an array of minor faults developed within the Urgonian. These fault zones are generally less than 10cm wide and are coated in fault gouge. This array of faults is underlain by a gouge zone along the thrust contact between the Urgonian and the Miocene which is several metres thick. The gouge zones were all formed during the action of diffusive mass transfer (DMT) and cataclasis as deformation mechanisms. The wall-rocks to the gouge zones are relatively undeformed by the action of cataclasis. Cataclasis is dilatant and produces fracture porosity which increases the permeability of the fault zones whilst DMT reduces the porosity and permeability of the fault zones due to cement precipitation and pressure dissolution. Cross- cutting relationships between the microstructures indicating the action of cataclasis and DMT, suggest that the porosity and permeability of the fault rocks changed in a complex manner during the incremental deformation. This has important implications for assessing syn-kinematic fluid migration through fault zones. The fault rocks exposed at the surface today are relatively impermeable compared to undeformed wall-rocks away from the fault zone which have permeabilities comparable to those found within hydrocarbon reservoirs. The thrust zone may have been a seal in the sub-surface after the cessation of thrusting but prior to uplift and erosion. Early distributed deformation produced an array of minor faults within the Urgonian. Cataclasis had ceased along these faults before later deformation became localised along the gouge zone which exists along the thrust contact between the Urgonian and the Miocene rocks. Early deformation was accompanied by the migration through fracture porosity of pore waters which were saturated with respect to calcite and had interacted with organic matter which was being thermally altered. This fluid flow system was not connected to fluid flow higher in the stratigraphy which resulted in the precipitation of ferroan calcite within fracture porosity in the Senonian limestones. Late deformation within the thrust zone was accompanied by the migration of hydrocarbons and pore waters saturated with respect to calcite and pyrite. All the pore waters involved in migration through the active thrust zone seem to have migrated up-dip. They migrated from levels in the stratigraphy where organic metamorphism and the maturation of hydrocarbons were occurring to levels in the deformed section which have always remained within the diagenetic realm. Ferroan calcite, pyrite and traces of hydrocarbons have not been found outside the gouge zone along the thrust contact between the Urgonian and Miocene. The fracturing which occurred to open this migration pathway did not re- fracture the inactive minor faults which were impermeable at this time. Fluid migration at this time was confined to beneath the zone of impermeable minor faults in the Urgonian and did not contribute to the diagenesis of the rocks above the thrust zone. Hydrocarbons could not have entered the hanging-wall anticline above the thrust zone from this migration pathway. The fracturing at this time did not produce connected fracture networks pervasively throughout the thrust zone which suggests that the deformation may not have released large amounts of energy in the form of seismic waves

Re-evaluating syndicalist opposition to the First World War

It has been argued that support for the First World War by the important French syndicalist organisation, the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) has tended to obscure the fact that other national syndicalist organisations remained faithful to their professed workers’ internationalism: on this basis syndicalists beyond France, more than any other ideological persuasion within the organised trade union movement in immediate pre-war and wartime Europe, can be seen to have constituted an authentic movement of opposition to the war in their refusal to subordinate class interests to those of the state, to endorse policies of ‘defencism’ of the ‘national interest’ and to abandon the rhetoric of class conflict. This article, which attempts to contribute to a much neglected comparative historiography of the international syndicalist movement, re-evaluates the syndicalist response across a broad geographical field of canvas (embracing France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Britain and America) to reveal a rather more nuanced, ambiguous and uneven picture. While it highlights the distinctive nature of the syndicalist response compared with other labour movement trends, it also explores the important strategic and tactical limitations involved, including the dilemma of attempting to translate formal syndicalist ideological commitments against the war into practical measures of intervention, and the consequences of the syndicalists’ subordination of the political question of the war to the industrial struggle

BH3-only proteins are dispensable for apoptosis induced by pharmacological inhibition of both MCL-1 and BCL-XL.

The impressive selectivity and efficacy of BH3 mimetics for treating cancer has largely been limited to BCL-2 dependent hematological malignancies. Most solid tumors depend on other anti-apoptotic proteins, including MCL-1, for survival. The recent description of S63845 as the first specific and potent MCL-1 inhibitor represents an important therapeutic advance, since MCL-1 is not targeted by the currently available BH3 mimetics, Navitoclax or Venetoclax, and is commonly associated with chemoresistance. In this study, we confirm a high binding affinity and selectivity of S63845 to induce apoptosis in MCL-1-dependent cancer cell lines. Furthermore, S63845 synergizes with other BH3 mimetics to induce apoptosis in cell lines derived from both hematological and solid tumors. Although the anti-apoptotic BCL-2 family members in these cell lines interact with a spectrum of pro-apoptotic BH3-only proteins to regulate apoptosis, these interactions alone do not explain the relative sensitivities of these cell lines to BH3 mimetic-induced apoptosis. These findings necessitated further investigation into the requirement of BH3-only proteins in BH3 mimetic-mediated apoptosis. Concurrent inhibition of BCL-XL and MCL-1 by BH3 mimetics in colorectal HCT116 cells induced apoptosis in a BAX- but not BAK-dependent manner. Remarkably this apoptosis was independent of all known BH3-only proteins. Although BH3-only proteins were required for apoptosis induced as a result of BCL-XL inhibition, this requirement was overcome when both BCL-XL and MCL-1 were inhibited, implicating distinct mechanisms by which different anti-apoptotic BCL-2 family members may regulate apoptosis in cancer

In-situ estimation of ice crystal properties at the South Pole using LED calibration data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory instruments about 1 km3 of deep, glacial ice at the geographic South Pole using 5160 photomultipliers to detect Cherenkov light emitted by charged relativistic particles. A unexpected light propagation effect observed by the experiment is an anisotropic attenuation, which is aligned with the local flow direction of the ice. Birefringent light propagation has been examined as a possible explanation for this effect. The predictions of a first-principles birefringence model developed for this purpose, in particular curved light trajectories resulting from asymmetric diffusion, provide a qualitatively good match to the main features of the data. This in turn allows us to deduce ice crystal properties. Since the wavelength of the detected light is short compared to the crystal size, these crystal properties do not only include the crystal orientation fabric, but also the average crystal size and shape, as a function of depth. By adding small empirical corrections to this first-principles model, a quantitatively accurate description of the optical properties of the IceCube glacial ice is obtained. In this paper, we present the experimental signature of ice optical anisotropy observed in IceCube LED calibration data, the theory and parametrization of the birefringence effect, the fitting procedures of these parameterizations to experimental data as well as the inferred crystal properties.</p

Galactic Core-Collapse Supernovae at IceCube: “Fire Drill” Data Challenges and follow-up

The next Galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make astrophysical measurements using neutrinos, gravitational waves, and electromagnetic radiation. CCSNe local to the Milky Way are extremely rare, so it is paramount that detectors are prepared to observe the signal when it arrives. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a gigaton water Cherenkov detector below the South Pole, is sensitive to the burst of neutrinos released by a Galactic CCSN at a level >10σ. This burst of neutrinos precedes optical emission by hours to days, enabling neutrinos to serve as an early warning for follow-up observation. IceCube\u27s detection capabilities make it a cornerstone of the global network of neutrino detectors monitoring for Galactic CCSNe, the SuperNova Early Warning System (SNEWS 2.0). In this contribution, we describe IceCube\u27s sensitivity to Galactic CCSNe and strategies for operational readiness, including "fire drill" data challenges. We also discuss coordination with SNEWS 2.0

All-Energy Search for Solar Atmospheric Neutrinos with IceCube

The interaction of cosmic rays with the solar atmosphere generates a secondary flux of mesons that decay into photons and neutrinos – the so-called solar atmospheric flux. Although the gamma-ray component of this flux has been observed in Fermi-LAT and HAWC Observatory data, the neutrino component remains undetected. The energy distribution of those neutrinos follows a soft spectrum that extends from the GeV to the multi-TeV range, making large Cherenkov neutrino telescopes a suitable for probing this flux. In this contribution, we will discuss current progress of a search for the solar neutrino flux by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory using all available data since 2011. Compared to the previous analysis which considered only high-energy muon neutrino tracks, we will additionally consider events produced by all flavors of neutrinos down to GeV-scale energies. These new events should improve our analysis sensitivity since the flux falls quickly with energy. Determining the magnitude of the neutrino flux is essential, since it is an irreducible background to indirect solar dark matter searches

TXS 0506+056 with Updated IceCube Data

Past results from the IceCube Collaboration have suggested that the blazar TXS 0506+056 is a potential source of astrophysical neutrinos. However, in the years since there have been numerous updates to event processing and reconstruction, as well as improvements to the statistical methods used to search for astrophysical neutrino sources. These improvements in combination with additional years of data have resulted in the identification of NGC 1068 as a second neutrino source candidate. This talk will re-examine time-dependent neutrino emission from TXS 0506+056 using the most recent northern-sky data sample that was used in the analysis of NGC 1068. The results of using this updated data sample to obtain a significance and flux fit for the 2014 TXS 0506+056 "untriggered" neutrino flare are reported