Recognising different sediment provenances within a passive margin setting: Towards characterising a sediment source to the west of the British late Carboniferous sedimentary basins

2011 ◽  
Vol 283 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 143-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sorcha Diskin ◽  
Jane Evans ◽  
Mike B. Fowler ◽  
Paul D. Guion
2007 ◽  
Vol 178 (5) ◽  
pp. 343-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youssef Raddi ◽  
Lahssen Baidder ◽  
Mohamed Tahiri ◽  
André Michard

Abstract North of the Saharan cratonic domain, the Anti-Atlas mountains correspond to the foreland, external fold belt of the Variscan orogen which extends in the Meseta block to the north, and Mauritanides to the southwest. The Anti-Atlas was uplifted during the Mesozoic-Cenozoic, and display several basement culminations (“boutonnières”) amidst the folded Palaeozoic cover. Recent studies in western Anti-Atlas emphasized the basement implication in the shortening process (thick skinned structure). Hereafter we investigate the cover-basement relations in eastern Anti-Atlas south of the Ougnat culmination, based on mapping at scale 1:50,000. The Palaeozoic sequence is much thinner than in the west, and the décollement levels are less important. Flexural slip folds are concentrated along the faults (en échelon folds) and within some rhombic domains crushed between major faults (e.g. Angal-Gherghiz Lozenge), whereas other areas are monoclinal. The main shortening direction deduced from the fold axes trend is directed ~N045°E as in the Ougarta range further to SE. At a regional scale, this shortening direction interferes with a N-S trending one. A sketch map of the top of the basement makes visible a mosaic of S- to SE-ward tilted blocks. The faults between these blocks are inherited from paleofaults which formed during extensional events during the Cambrian, late Ordovician, and (mainly) Middle-Late Devonian. The paleofault array is indicative of a proximal passive margin setting at the northern border of the metacratonic domain. The fault inversion and their dominant strike-slip throw occurred during a late Variscan (Stephanian-Permian) compression event, postdating the NNW-SSE collision of the Meseta block.


Minerals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 573
Author(s):  
Shahid Iqbal ◽  
Michael Wagreich ◽  
Mehwish Bibi ◽  
Irfan U. Jan ◽  
Susanne Gier

The Salt Range, in Pakistan, preserves an insightful sedimentary record of passive margin dynamics along the NW margin of the Indian Plate during the Mesozoic. This study develops provenance analyses of the Upper Triassic (Kingriali Formation) to Lower Jurassic (Datta Formation) siliciclastics from the Salt and Trans Indus ranges based on outcrop analysis, petrography, bulk sediment elemental geochemistry, and heavy-mineral data. The sandstones are texturally and compositionally mature quartz arenites and the conglomerates are quartz rich oligomictic conglomerates. Geochemical proxies support sediment derivation from acidic sources and deposition under a passive margin setting. The transparent heavy mineral suite consists of zircon, tourmaline, and rutile (ZTR) with minor staurolite in the Triassic strata that diminishes in the Jurassic strata. Together, these data indicate that the sediments were supplied by erosion of the older siliciclastics of the eastern Salt Range and adjoining areas of the Indian Plate. The proportion of recycled component exceeds the previous literature estimates for direct sediment derivation from the Indian Shield. A possible increase in detritus supply from the Salt Range itself indicates notably different conditions of sediment generation, during the Triassic–Jurassic transition. The present results suggest that, during the Triassic–Jurassic transition in the Salt Range, direct sediment supply from the Indian Shield was probably reduced and the Triassic and older siliciclastics were exhumed on an elevated passive margin and reworked by a locally established fluvio-deltaic system. The sediment transport had a north-northwestward trend parallel to the northwestern Tethyan margin of the Indian Plate and normal to its opening axis. During the Late Triassic, hot and arid hot-house palaeoclimate prevailed in the area that gave way to a hot and humid greenhouse palaeoclimate across the Triassic–Jurassic Boundary. Sedimentological similarity between the Salt Range succession and the Neo-Tethyan succession exposed to the east on the northern Indian passive Neo-Tethyan margin suggests a possible westward extension of this margin.


1983 ◽  
Vol 120 (5) ◽  
pp. 487-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. McPhie

SummaryRegionally mappable, silicic, outflow ignimbrite sheets are interbedded with fluvial volcanogenic conglomerates and sandstones of the Late Carboniferous Currabubula Formation of north-eastern N.S.W. Four of the most widespread of these ignimbrites are described and defined as members. The oldest member is comprised of many thin, originally non-welded flow units. Interbedded accretionary lapilli horizons may indicate phreatomagmatic activity at vent during the eruption in addition to local rain-flushing of co-ignimbrite ash clouds. Of the three other members, two are multiple flow-unit sheets, 160–180 m in aggregate thickness. Substantial portions of these sheets were originally welded. The remaining member is a simple welded ignimbrite characterized by abundant spherulites and lithophysae. Irregular pre-eruption topography and contemporaneous erosion were responsible for thickness variations of the ignimbrite sheets. Some palaeovalleys, now delineated by the ignimbrites, persisted in spite of repeated pyroclastic influxes. Relic pumice, shards and crystal fragments are ubiquitous components of the sedimentary facies of the Currabubula Formation, and were probably derived from originally poorly consolidated pyroclastic deposits such as airfall ash layers and non-welded ignimbrites. No surface trace of the sources of these ignimbrites exists. However, internal facies, thickness variations and volumes of the ignimbrites indicate that they periodically emanated from a multiple-caldera terrain which was continuously active during the Late Carboniferous, and located several kilometres to the west of present exposures.


2020 ◽  
Vol 177 ◽  
pp. 02004
Author(s):  
Viacheslav Turyshev

The average and boundary contents of natural radioactive elements in sandy, aleuritic, argillaceous, mixed and carbonaceous types of sedimentary rocks of the main groups of productive strata of the Jurassic-Cretaceous age of Western Siberia are estimated; a comparison of the obtained values of the contents of radioelements with their contents in sedimentary deposits of some regions of the former USSR is performed.


2015 ◽  
Vol 186 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 331-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Afilhado ◽  
Maryline Moulin ◽  
Daniel Aslanian ◽  
Philippe Schnürle ◽  
Frauke Klingelhoefer ◽  
...  

Abstract Geophysical data acquired on the conjugate margins system of the Gulf of Lion and West Sardinia (GLWS) is unique in its ability to address fundamental questions about rifting (i.e. crustal thinning, the nature of the continent-ocean transition zone, the style of rifting and subsequent evolution, and the connection between deep and surface processes). While the Gulf of Lion (GoL) was the site of several deep seismic experiments, which occurred before the SARDINIA Experiment (ESP and ECORS Experiments in 1981 and 1988 respectively), the crustal structure of the West Sardinia margin remains unknown. This paper describes the first modeling of wide-angle and near-vertical reflection multi-channel seismic (MCS) profiles crossing the West Sardinia margin, in the Mediterranean Sea. The profiles were acquired, together with the exact conjugate of the profiles crossing the GoL, during the SARDINIA experiment in December 2006 with the French R/V L’Atalante. Forward wide-angle modeling of both data sets (wide-angle and multi-channel seismic) confirms that the margin is characterized by three distinct domains following the onshore unthinned, 26 km-thick continental crust : Domain V, where the crust thins from ~26 to 6 km in a width of about 75 km; Domain IV where the basement is characterized by high velocity gradients and lower crustal seismic velocities from 6.8 to 7.25 km/s, which are atypical for either crustal or upper mantle material, and Domain III composed of “atypical” oceanic crust. The structure observed on the West Sardinian margin presents a distribution of seismic velocities that is symmetrical with those observed on the Gulf of Lion’s side, except for the dimension of each domain and with respect to the initiation of seafloor spreading. This result does not support the hypothesis of simple shear mechanism operating along a lithospheric detachment during the formation of the Liguro-Provencal basin.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabrina Kainz ◽  
Lon Abbott ◽  
Rebecca Flowers ◽  
James Metcalf

<p>Past work has used the Southern Rocky Mountains (SRM) in the U.S. state of Colorado to illustrate the important role that rock strength plays in the histories recorded by the apatite fission track (AFT) and apatite (U-Th)/He (AHe) low-temperature thermochronometers (Flowers & Ehlers, 2018). The SRM were initially raised during the Laramide Orogeny, ca. 70-45 Ma, but consensus exists that the region also experienced a later, post-Laramide exhumation event. Flowers & Ehlers (2018) pointed to the low erosion potential of the Precambrian crystalline basement rocks that crop out in most SRM ranges as a primary reason for the abundance of 55-70 Ma “Laramide” AFT and AHe dates in the region, compared to a paucity of younger dates that would presumably be produced through erosion triggered by the post-Laramide exhumation event. South-central Colorado offers a test of this hypothesis, due to lateral variations in rock erodibility provided by the presence here of both sedimentary and crystalline Laramide ranges and adjacent sedimentary basins. The combination of our ongoing AHe study with previous south-central Colorado AFT and AHe work reveals kilometer-scale post-Laramide (Oligo-Miocene) exhumation has occurred in areas that possess thick sedimentary rock sequences whereas exhumation has been negligible where crystalline basement comprises the land surface. </p><p>South-central Colorado’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains consist of an imbricate stack of thrust sheets composed of Permian sedimentary rock. About 30 km farther east stand the Wet Mountains, another Laramide range – but one composed of Precambrian basement rock. The Raton Basin, a SRM foreland basin filled with 2 km of synorogenic fill underlain by a thick sequence of marine shale, lies south and east of the two ranges. The Wet Mountains thus form a peninsula of strong crystalline rock surrounded by more erodible sedimentary rocks to the west, south, and east. </p><p>Our study and that of Landman (2018) records at least 2 km of erosion in the Raton Basin east and south of the Wet Mountains since 25 Ma. Lindsey et al (1986) obtained 24-15 Ma AFT dates from the Paleozoic sedimentary rocks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, demonstrating that kilometer-scale Oligo-Miocene exhumation occurred just west of the Wet Mountains. By contrast, Kelley and Chapin (2004) obtained only pre-Laramide AFT ages between 228-110 Ma for 17 samples of Precambrian basement from the crest of the Wet Mountains. A 32 Ma ash flow tuff unconformably overlies Precambrian basement on Greenhorn Mountain, the Wet Mountains’ highest and southernmost peak. Its presence reinforces the conclusion, based on the AFT dates, that Oligo-Miocene erosion of the Wet Mountain massif has been minimal simultaneous with kilometer-scale exhumation to the west, south, and east. These results illustrate the important role that rock strength plays in determining the dates recorded in low-temperature thermochronologic studies.</p>


Elements ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 311-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel F. Stockli ◽  
Yani M. R. Najman

A dvances in detrital noble gas thermochronometry by 40Ar/39Ar and (U–Th)/He dating are improving the resolution of sedimentary provenance reconstructions and are providing new insights into the evolution of Earth’s surface. Detrital thermochronometry has the ability to quantify tectonic unroofing or erosion, temporal and dynamic connections between sediment source and sink, sediment lag-times and transfer rates, the timing of deposition, and postdepositional burial heating. Hence, this technique has the unique ability to use the detrital record in sedimentary basins to reconstruct Earth’s dynamic long-term landscape evolution and how basins are coupled to their hinterlands.


2007 ◽  
Vol 144 (6) ◽  
pp. 963-976 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Montero ◽  
F. Bea ◽  
F. González-Lodeiro ◽  
C. Talavera ◽  
M. J. Whitehouse

AbstractDating the pre-Middle Ordovician metavolcanic rocks and metagranites of the Ollo de Sapo Domain has, historically, been difficult because of the small compositional variation, the effects of the Variscan orogeny and, as revealed in this paper, the unusually high fraction of inherited zircon components. The first reliable zircon data (U–Pb ion microprobe and Pb–Pb stepwise evaporation) indicate that the Ollo de Sapo volcanism spanned 495±5 Ma to 483±3 Ma, and was followed by the intrusion of high-level granites from 483±3 Ma to 474±4 Ma. In both metavolcanic rocks and metagranites, no less than 70–80% of zircon grains are either totally Precambrian or contain a Precambrian core overgrown by a Cambro-Ordovician rim. About 80–90% of inherited zircons are Early Ediacaran (602–614 Ma) and derived from calc-alkaline intermediate to felsic igneous rocks generated at the end of the Pan-African arc–continent collision. In the Villadepera region, located to the west, both the metagranites and metavolcanic rocks also contain Meso-Archaean zircons (3.0–3.2 Ga) which ultimately originated from the West African Craton. In the Hiendelaencina region, located to the east, both the metagranites and metavolcanic rocks lack Meso-Archaean zircons, but they have two different inherited zircon populations, one Cryogenian (650–700 Ma) and the other Tonian (850–900 Ma), which suggest older-than-Ediacaran additional island-arc components. The different proportion of source components and the marked variation of the 87Sr/86Srinit. suggest, at least tentatively, that the across-arc polarity of the remnants of the Pan-African arc of Iberia trended east–west (with respect to the current coordinates) during Cambro-Ordovician times, and that the passive margin was situated to the west.


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