Recent mineral separate ages obtained on the Karoo large igneous province (southern Africa) suggest that the province was built by several distinct magmatic pulses over a rather long period on the order of 5–6 Ma concerning the main erupted volume [Jourdan, F., Féraud, G., Bertrand, H., Kampunzu, A.B., Tshoso, G., Watkeys, M.K., Le Gall., B., 2005. The Karoo large igneous province: Brevity, origin, and relation with mass extinction questioned by new 40Ar/39Ar age data, Geology 33, 745–748]. Although this apparently atypical province is dated in more detail compared to many other large igneous provinces, volumetrically important areas still lack sufficient high-quality data. The timing of the Karoo province is crucial as this event is correlated with the breakup activity of the Gondwana supercontinent. The Lesotho basalts represent a major lava sequence of the province, but have not yet been precisely dated by systematic analysis of mineral separates. We analyzed plagioclase separates from five lava flows encompassing the complete 1.4-km-thick Lesotho sequence from top to bottom using the 40Ar/39Ar method. We obtained five plateau and mini-plateau ages statistically indistinguishable and ranging from 182.3 ± 1.6 to 181.0 ± 2.0 Ma (2σ). We derived an apparent maximum duration for this event of 0.8 Ma by neglecting correlated errors embedded in the age uncertainties.
A critical review of previous ages obtained on the Lesotho sequence [Duncan R.A., Hooper, P.R., Rehacek, J., Marsh, J.S., Duncan, A.R., 1997. The timing and duration of the Karoo igneous event, southern Gondwana. Journal of Geophysical Research 102, 18127–18138] shows that groundmass analyses are unreliable for high-resolution geochronology, due to alteration and 39Ar recoil effects. Discrepancy between our ages and a previous plagioclase age at 184 Ma obtained by the later workers is tentatively attributed to the heterogeneity of the monitor used and/or cryptic excess 40Ar. The current age database suggests that at least three temporally and spatially distinct brief major events (the Lesotho and southern Botswana lava piles and the Okavango dyke swarm) are so far recognized in the Karoo province. Identification of brief and volumetrically important Karoo magmatic events allows detecting the migration of the Karoo magmatism and potentially the stress regime that affected the southern African lithosphere at this time. A filtered compilation of 60 ages obtained with homogeneous intercalibrated standards suggests a shorter duration for the main pulses of the magmatism between 3 and 4.5 Ma, compared to a whole province duration of 10 Ma, between 182 and 172 Ma. 相似文献
Simulation experiments on the primary migration of oil were carried out on massive samples. The results proved that oil generated from source rocks was expelled in the form of an independent oil phase. High oil-expulsion efficiency was observed. It follows that the primary migration of oil is not directly dependent on the quantity of oil generated from the source rocks. Therefore, the oil-expulsion proportion was high though some source rocks yielded only a limited amount of oil. A great deal of gas was produced at the same time of oil-generation. Thus, it can be concluded that the main expulsion energy for oil primary migration came from these gases. 相似文献
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Annualized Agricultural Non-Point Source Pollution model (AnnAGNPS) is used to help evaluate a watershed response to agricultural management practices to control water quality. However, AnnAGNPS version 3.5 does not contain features to estimate the effect of a riparian buffer (RB) system on water quality. The Riparian Ecosystem Management Model (REMM) is used to simulate the impact of riparian buffer systems on water quality. However, frequently the lack of measured upland loadings that are required by REMM simulation limits the application of REMM. To address this data gap, a study was conducted to integrate AnnAGNPS with REMM for RB system simulation. AnnAGNPS was used to simulate water and sediment loadings from an upland field into a three-zone RB system at the Gibbs Farm located in the Georgia coastal plain. These AnnAGNPS outputs were used as the inputs to REMM. REMM was used to simulate water and sediment movement along the riparian buffers. The AnnAGNPS simulated amount of annual runoff at the edge of the field was close to observed amounts (Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency of 0.92). It is believed that a substantial portion of sand was removed from the runoff one meter into the grass buffer where the samplers were located; therefore, sand was excluded from the AnnAGNPS simulation for comparison with observed sediment. Excluding sand, the AnnAGNPS predicted amount of annual sediment matches the observed amount fairly well (Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency of 0.46). In addition, based on evaluating the percent reduction of sediment at each zonal interface, the AnnAGNPS/REMM model well simulated the function of the RB system to reduce sediment. 相似文献