Towards a volcanic–structural balance: relative importance of volcanism, folding, and remobilisation of nickel sulphides at the Perseverance Ni–Cu–(PGE) deposit, Western Australia     

Paul Duuring  Wouter Bleeker  Steve W. Beresford  Nicholas Hayward 《Mineralium Deposita》2010,45(3):281-311

Perseverance is a world-class, komatiite-hosted nickel sulphide deposit situated in the well-endowed Leinster nickel camp of the Agnew–Wiluna greenstone belt, Western Australia. The mine stratigraphy at Perseverance trends north-northwest (NNW), dips steeply to the west, and is overturned. Stratigraphic footwall units lie along the western margin of the Perseverance Ultramafic Complex (PUC). The PUC comprises a basal nickel sulphide-bearing orthocumulate- to mesocumulate-textured komatiite that is overlain by a thicker, nickel sulphide-poor, dunite lens. Hanging wall rocks include rhyodacite that is texturally and compositionally similar to footwall volcanic rocks. These rocks separate the PUC from a second sequence of nickeliferous, E-facing, spinifex-textured komatiite units (i.e. the East Perseverance komatiite). Past workers argue for a conformable stratigraphic contact between the PUC and the East Perseverance komatiite and conclude that the PUC is extrusive. This study, however, clearly demonstrates that these komatiite sequences are discordant, implying that the PUC may have intruded rhyodacite country rock as a sill with subsequent structural juxtaposition against the East Perseverance komatiite. Early N–S shortening associated with the regional D_I deformation event (corresponding to the local D_P1 to D_P3 events at Perseverance) resulted in the heterogeneous partitioning of strain along the margins of the competent dunite. A mylonite developed in the more ductile footwall rocks along the footwall margin of the PUC, while isoclinal F₃ folds, such as the Hanging wall limb and Felsic Nose folds, formed in low-mean stress domains along the fringes of the elongated dunite lens. Strata-bound massive and disseminated nickel sulphides were passively fold thickened in hinge areas of isoclinal folds, whereas basal massive sulphides lubricated fold limbs and promoted thrust movement along shallowly dipping lithological contacts. Massive sulphides were physically remobilised up to 20 m from their primary footwall position into deposit-scale fold hinges to form the 1A and Felsic Nose orebodies. First-order controls on the geometry of the Perseverance deposit include the thermomechanical erosion of footwall rocks and the channelling of the mineralised komatiitic magma. Second- or third-order controls are several postvolcanic deformation events, which resulted in the progressive folding and shearing of the footwall contact, as well as the passive fold thickening of massive and disseminated sulphide orebodies. Massive sulphides were physically remobilised into multiple generations of fold hinges and shear zones. Important implications for near-mine exploration in the Leinster camp include identifying nickeliferous komatiite units, defining their three-dimensional geometry, and targeting fold hinge areas. Fold plunge directions and stretching lineations are indicators of potential plunge directions of massive sulphide orebodies.  相似文献   

In memoriam: Prof Peter Fisher     

Nicholas J. Tate 《International journal of geographical information science》2014,28(9):1741-1743

  相似文献   

Scales and causes of heterogeneity in bars in a large multi‐channel river: Río Paraná, Argentina     

Arnold J. H. Reesink  Philip J. Ashworth  Gregory H. Sambrook Smith  James L. Best  Daniel R. Parsons  Mario L. Amsler  Richard J. Hardy  Stuart N. Lane  Andrew P. Nicholas  Oscar Orfeo  Steven D. Sandbach  Christopher J. Simpson  Ricardo N. Szupiany 《Sedimentology》2014,61(4):1055-1085

To date, published studies of alluvial bar architecture in large rivers have been restricted mostly to case studies of individual bars and single locations. Relatively little is known about how the depositional processes and sedimentary architecture of kilometre‐scale bars vary within a multi‐kilometre reach or over several hundreds of kilometres downstream. This study presents Ground Penetrating Radar and core data from 11, kilometre‐scale bars from the Río Paraná, Argentina. The investigated bars are located between 30 km upstream and 540 km downstream of the Río Paraná – Río Paraguay confluence, where a significant volume of fine‐grained suspended sediment is introduced into the network. Bar‐scale cross‐stratified sets, with lengths and widths up to 600 m and thicknesses up to 12 m, enable the distinction of large river deposits from stacked deposits of smaller rivers, but are only present in half the surface area of the bars. Up to 90% of bar‐scale sets are found on top of finer‐grained ripple‐laminated bar‐trough deposits. Bar‐scale sets make up as much as 58% of the volume of the deposits in small, incipient mid‐channel bars, but this proportion decreases significantly with increasing age and size of the bars. Contrary to what might be expected, a significant proportion of the sedimentary structures found in the Río Paraná is similar in scale to those found in much smaller rivers. In other words, large river deposits are not always characterized by big structures that allow a simple interpretation of river scale. However, the large scale of the depositional units in big rivers causes small‐scale structures, such as ripple sets, to be grouped into thicker cosets, which indicate river scale even when no obvious large‐scale sets are present. The results also show that the composition of bars differs between the studied reaches upstream and downstream of the confluence with the Río Paraguay. Relative to other controls on downstream fining, the tributary input of fine‐grained suspended material from the Río Paraguay causes a marked change in the composition of the bar deposits. Compared to the upstream reaches, the sedimentary architecture of the downstream reaches in the top ca 5 m of mid‐channel bars shows: (i) an increase in the abundance and thickness (up to metre‐scale) of laterally extensive (hundreds of metres) fine‐grained layers; (ii) an increase in the percentage of deposits comprised of ripple sets (to >40% in the upper bar deposits); and (iii) an increase in bar‐trough deposits and a corresponding decrease in bar‐scale cross‐strata (<10%). The thalweg deposits of the Río Paraná are composed of dune sets, even directly downstream from the Río Paraguay where the upper channel deposits are dominantly fine‐grained. Thus, the change in sedimentary facies due to a tributary point‐source of fine‐grained sediment is primarily expressed in the composition of the upper bar deposits.  相似文献   

What is a flux tube? On the magnetic field topology of buoyant flux structures     

Fausto Cattaneo  Nicholas H. Brummell  Kelly S. Cline † 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2006,365(3):727-734

We study the topology of field lines threading buoyant magnetic flux structures. The magnetic structures, visually resembling idealized magnetic flux tubes, are generated self-consistently by numerical simulation of the interaction of magnetic buoyancy and a localized velocity shear in a stably stratified atmosphere. Depending on the parameters, the system exhibits varying degrees of symmetry. By integrating along magnetic field lines and constructing return maps, we show that, depending on the type of underlying behaviour, the stages of the evolution, and therefore the degree of symmetry, the resulting magnetic structures can have field lines with one of three distinct topologies. When the x -translational and y -reflectional symmetries remain intact, magnetic field lines lie on surfaces but individual lines do not cover the surface. When the y symmetry is broken, magnetic field lines lie on surfaces and individual lines do cover the surface. When both x and y symmetries are broken, magnetic field lines wander chaotically over a large volume of the magnetically active region. We discuss how these results impact our simple ideas of a magnetic flux tube as an object with an inside and an outside, and introduce the concept of 'leaky' tubes.  相似文献   

The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: the b_J-band galaxy luminosity function and survey selection function     

Peder Norberg  Shaun Cole  Carlton M. Baugh  Carlos S. Frenk  Ivan Baldry  Joss Bland-Hawthorn  Terry Bridges  Russell Cannon  Matthew Colless  Chris Collins  Warrick Couch  Nicholas J. G. Cross  Gavin Dalton  Roberto De Propris  Simon P. Driver  George Efstathiou  Richard S. Ellis  Karl Glazebrook  Carole Jackson  Ofer Lahav  Ian Lewis  Stuart Lumsden  Steve Maddox  Darren Madgwick  John A. Peacock  Bruce A. Peterson  Will Sutherland  Keith Taylor 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2002,336(3):907-931

  相似文献   

The bivariate brightness function of galaxies and a demonstration of the impact of surface brightness selection effects on luminosity function estimations     

Nicholas Cross  Simon P. Driver 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2002,329(3):579-587

  相似文献   

A search for X-ray flashes with XMM–Newton     

Nicholas M. Law  Robert E. Rutledge  Shrinivas R. Kulkarni 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2004,350(3):1079-1086

  相似文献   

The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: the environmental dependence of galaxy star formation rates near clusters     

Ian Lewis  Michael Balogh  Roberto De Propris  Warrick Couch  Richard Bower  Alison Offer  Joss Bland-Hawthorn  Ivan K. Baldry  Carlton Baugh  Terry Bridges  Russell Cannon  Shaun Cole  Matthew Colless  Chris Collins  Nicholas Cross  Gavin Dalton  Simon P. Driver  George Efstathiou  Richard S. Ellis  Carlos S. Frenk  Karl Glazebrook  Edward Hawkins  Carole Jackson  Ofer Lahav  Stuart Lumsden  Steve Maddox  Darren Madgwick  Peder Norberg  John A. Peacock  Will Percival  Bruce A. Peterson  Will Sutherland  Keith Taylor 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2002,334(3):673-683

  相似文献   

Upstairs-downstairs: supercontinents and large igneous provinces,are they related?     

Kent C. Condie  Anne Davaille  Richard C. Aster  Nicholas Arndt 《International Geology Review》2015,57(11-12):1341-1348

There is a correlation of global large igneous province (LIP) events with zircon age peaks at 2700, 2500, 2100, 1900, 1750, 1100, and 600 and also probably at 3450, 3000, 2000, and 300 Ma. Power spectral analyses of LIP event distributions suggest important periodicities at 250, 150, 100, 50, and 25 million years with weaker periodicities at 70–80, 45, and 18–20 Ma. The 25 million year periodicity is important only in the last 300 million years. Some LIP events are associated with granite-forming (zircon-producing) events and others are not, and LIP events at 1900 and 600 Ma correlate with peaks in craton collision frequency. LIP age peaks are associated with supercontinent rifting or breakup, but not dispersal, at 2450–2400, 2200, 1380, 1280, 800–750, and ≤200 Ma, and with supercontinent assembly at 1750 and 600 Ma. LIP peaks at 2700 and 2500 Ma and the valley between these peaks span the time of Neoarchaean supercraton assemblies. These observations are consistent with plume generation in the deep mantle operating independently of the supercontinent cycle and being controlled by lower-mantle and core-mantle boundary thermochemical dynamics. Two processes whereby plumes can impact continental assembly and breakup are (1) plumes may rise beneath supercontinents and initiate supercontinent breakup, and (2) plume ascent may increase the frequency of craton collisions and the rate of crustal growth by accelerating subduction.  相似文献   

Zn and Pb mobility during metamorphism of sedimentary rocks and potential implications for some base metal deposits     

Johannes Hammerli  Carl Spandler  Nicholas H.S. Oliver  Paolo Sossi  Gregory M Dipple 《Mineralium Deposita》2015,50(6):657-664

  相似文献