scholarly journals The Kilen Expedition 1985

1993 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 9-32
Author(s):  
E. Håkansson ◽  
C. Heinberg ◽  
C. Hjort ◽  
P. Mølgaard ◽  
S. A. S. Pedersen

The 1985 expedition constitutes the first comprehensive investigation of the isolated, hyperarctic semi­nunatak Kilen in eastern North Greenland. Well over 3 km of generally marine, elastic sediments are preserved from the Late Jurassic to Late Cretaceous period. While half this amount accumulated in ·a comparatively stable tectonic regime prevailing during Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous time, the Late Cretaceous (Turonian-Coniacian) sediments are characterized by their deposition in a local pull-apart basin developed in the regional Wandel Hav Strike-Slip Mobile Belt. Subsequent, localized compression along this belt has deformed the entire sequence rather severely in a complex series of en echelon domal folding and thrusting, most likely during the later part of the Cretaceous. Quaternary marine sediments of probable interglacial origin (> 100.000 years old) have been found to contain a mollusc fauna requiring temperatures above the present level. Flade lsblink, the largest local icecap in Greenland, is composed of several semi-independant ice domes, and there is evidence that the history of this icecap deviates significantly from that of the Inland Ice. A total of 34 species of higher plants, 29 species of birds, and 11 species of mammals have been recorded from Kilen; vegetation studies indicate a July mean temperature of around 2.5°C.

2010 ◽  
Vol 148 (2) ◽  
pp. 334-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
ERIC BUFFETAUT ◽  
ATTILA ŐSI ◽  
EDINA PRONDVAI

AbstractThe fragmentary pterosaur material from the Campanian Grünbach Formation (Gosau Group) of Muthmannsdorf (Austria), previously identified as Ornithocheirus buenzeli Bunzel, 1871, is revised. A lower jaw fragment shows a helical type of articulation, which is known in several families of pterosaurs, and cannot be identified with great accuracy. The proximal part of a humerus shows distinctive features that allow it to be referred to as a member of the family Azhdarchidae, which is widespread in the Late Cretaceous Period of Europe. Ornithocheirus buenzeli is considered a nomen dubium. The pterosaur material from the Grünbach Formation cannot be used as evidence for the presence of ornithocheirids in the Late Cretaceous of Europe.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cunjian Zhang ◽  
Jingdong Liu ◽  
Youlu Jiang

<p>Research on overpressure evolution and its formation mechanisms is of great significance for revealing reservoir formation mechanisms and predicting formation pressures in oil and gas reservoirs before drilling. However, research methods addressing overpressure evolution are not without issues. The fluid inclusion PVT simulation and basin simulation can be used to investigate the paleo-pressure.</p> <p>The homogenization temperatures of inclusions were tested. The accuracy of the microscopic laser Raman spectroscopy analysis is too limited to fully test the components of gaseous hydrocarbon inclusions so that the organic components of the natural gas in the present-day gas reservoirs represented the gaseous hydrocarbon inclusions. In addition, the vapor-liquid ratio of gaseous hydrocarbon inclusions cannot be measured by CLSM. Firstly, A series of images at different slice depths was obtained by adjusting the focal length of a high-resolution microscope. Secondly, CorelDRAW software was used to calculate the areas of inclusions and bubbles; fitting functions were established between the inclusion areas and slice depths, and between the bubble areas and slice depths. Finally, the inclusion and bubble volumes were integrated to obtain the vapor-liquid ratios of the inclusions. PVTsim software can calculate the trapping pressures of inclusions. Combined with basin simulation, the evolution of paleo-pressure can be determined.</p> <p>The above methods were used to investigate the paleo-pressure of the Upper Triassic Xujiahe Formation in the northeast portion of the Sichuan Basin. Overpressure began to develop in the Middle Jurassic period. Due to hydrocarbon generation taking place, the formation pressure increased rapidly from the Middle Jurassic period to the early Late Cretaceous period. Since the early Late Cretaceous period, the formation pressure has gradually decreased due to tectonic uplift and erosion. From the Oligocene period to the present, the formation pressure have increased again in local areas due to tectonic compression.</p>


2014 ◽  
Vol 88 (6) ◽  
pp. 1257-1287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter G. Joyce ◽  
Juliana Sterli ◽  
Sandra D. Chapman

The fossil record of solemydid turtles is primarily based on isolated fragments collected from Late Jurassic to Late Cretaceous sediments throughout North America and Europe and little is therefore known about the morphology and evolutionary history of the group. We here provide a detailed description of the only known near-complete solemydid skeleton, which was collected from the Lower Cretaceous (Aptian–Albian) Antlers Formation of Texas during the mid-twentieth century, but essentially remains undescribed to date. Though comparison is limited, the skeleton is referred toNaomichelys speciosa, which is based on an isolated entoplastron from the Lower Cretaceous (Aptian–Albian) Kootenai (Cloverly) Formation of Montana. The absence of temporal emarginations, contribution of the jugals to the orbits, and a clear subdivision of the middle and inner cavities, and the presence of elongate postorbitals, posteriorly expanded squamosals, a triangular fossa at the posterior margin of the squamosals, an additional pair of tubercula basioccipitale that is formed by the pterygoids, foramina pro ramo nervi vidiani (VII) that are visible in ventral view, shell sculpturing consisting of high tubercles, a large entoplastron with entoplastral scute, V-shaped anterior peripherals, and limb osteoderms with tubercular sculpture diagnoseNaomichelys speciosaas a representative of Solemydidae. The full visibility of the parabasisphenoid complex in ventral view, the presence of an expanded symphyseal shelf, and the unusual ventromedial folding of the coronoid process are the primary characteristics that distinguishNaomichelys speciosafrom the near-coeval European taxonHelochelydra nopcsai.


1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. C. R. Willan ◽  
R. J. Pankhurst ◽  
F. Hervé

Fifteen samples of very low-grade mudstones from two widely separated sections in the Miers Bluff Formation on Hurd Peninsula yield an Rb-Sr errorchron (MSWD=8.9) corresponding to an age of 243 ± 8 Ma. This age is interpreted as representing effective homogenization, on a kilometres scale, during turbidite deposition and diagenesis in early Triassic times. The initial 87Sr/86Sr ratio 0.7085 ± 0.0003 represents a mature crustal source and is consistent with the re-working of material comparable to that eroded from the Chilean fore-arc accretionary complex. Four further samples, collected near to a zone of quartz-carbonate veins, lie to the right of the errorchron, with two samples having unusually low Sr contents. These samples fall on a 113 Ma reference line and indicate metasomatic disturbance in Cretaceous times. Metasomatism was probably related to hydrothermal alteration accompanying widespread silicification and quartz veining on western Hurd Peninsula. A mid-to late Cretaceous age for metasomatic disturbance agrees with field relations which indicate that the hydrothermal activity preceded or was coeval with the mid- to late Cretaceous period of volcanism on Livingston Island. Hence the hydrothermal rocks are not related to the Eocene Barnard Point pluton, as previously suggested.


1985 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. El-Arnauti ◽  
M. Shelmani

Abstract. INTRODUCTIONThe material which forms the basis of this project was obtained from a number of wells in the study area in Cyrenaica, the northeastern part of Libya. The study area, which is located between latitudes 25° and 33°N and between longitudes 20° and 25° E, covers some 365,750 square kilometres (see Fig. 1). The area extends from the Egyptian border in the east to the eastern flank of the Sirte Basin in the west and is part of the stable Saharan Shield.Since Precambrian time several phases of epeirogenic movements have produced troughs, horst blocks or platforms which have in turn influenced the subsequent sedimentological history of the area. In the southern and southeastern part of the study area, the basement is unconformably overlain by a thick, partially marine Palaeozoic sequence which is in turn unconformably overlain by sediments of Jurassic or younger age. The basement in the central and southwestern parts of the area is unconformably overlain by non-marine clastics of Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous age or by marine sediments of Late Cretaceous and Tertiary age. In the eastern and northeastern section the basement is overlain by a wedge of eastward thickening marine Palaeozoic rocks which are in turn unconformably overlain by marine sediments of Late Cretaceous and Tertiary age. In the most northerly part of the northeastern region of the study area, a thick paralic sequence of Triassic, Jurassic and Early Cretaceous deposits is unconformably overlain by Late Cretaceous and Tertiary sediments.PALAEOZOICRocks of Cambro-Ordovician . . .


Vista ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 217-228
Author(s):  
Victoria Ahrens

This is a visual essay that meanders. It is based around my encounter with palm trees and my grandfather’s silver print photographs, collated in an album that dates back to the 1930s. Henry Richard Ahrens was a keen photographer, though I had never seen any of his images until 2010 when I was given one of his albums by a relative who knew I was a photographer and writer. He died before I could get to know him. His photographs have a particular sensibility to them, with a multitude of self-portraits, and often, a hand written phrase to go with them. I am told he developed his films himself. He is often pictured next to palm trees in his photographs. These palms he photographed are particularly fascinating to me. They represent one of the few genus that extend back to the late Cretaceous period, a dinosaur of a plant species. With their many variations, they take on a poetic and utopian presence, their seeds having been disseminated through colonial exchanges, botanical curiosity and commercial interests. Found in so many surprising corners of the world, the palm expresses our need to explore, while becoming a symbol of resistance to discourses of nationalism and anti-immigration sentiment. This essay reflects a personal ethnography through the interconnected and material presence of the palm in London, Buenos Aires and in the photograph itself.


1979 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 748-769 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. P. Trettin ◽  
H. R. Balkwill

The Innuitian Tectonic Province contains the record of a Phanerozoic mobile belt in northern Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Two fundamentally different phases in its development were separated by the Devonian–Carboniferous Ellesmerian Orogeny. The first contribution focuses on the early Paleozoic history of a key area, the second summarizes the Carboniferous to Cenozoic history of most of the Canadian part of the province.(1) The early Paleozoic architecture of the mobile belt is apparent only in Ellesmere Island, where exposures extend from the Canadian Shield through Arctic Platform and Franklinian basin into the Pearya orogenic welt. The Franklinian basin comprised the deep but ensulic Hazen Trough and two unstable shelves bordering it on the northwest and southeast. The northwestern shelf was a site of felsic to intermediate volcanism, mainly in the Ordovician Period. Pearya, a site of granitic plutonism in the Devonian Period, supplied much of the clastic basin fill. Its core consisted of a metamorphic complex, about 1.0 Ga old, exposed in basement uplifts in nor thernmost Ellesmere Island. Both basin and welt essentially formed part of the North American Plate, although rifting, evident from mafic and ultramafic intrusions, probably occurred in Early Devonian (or latest Silurian) time. The history of this part of the province is tentatively interpreted as response to the opening and closure of an ocean, connected with lapetus, that separated northern Ellesmere Island and Greenland from the sialic crust of the present Lomonosov Ridge and Barents Shelf. The Lomonosov Ridge still seems to be attached to the shelf off northeasternmost Ellesmere Island.(2) Deep subsidence and filling of Sverdrup Basin dominated the Innuitian region from Early Carboniferous through Late Cretaceous time. Large halokinetic diapirs and mafic dikes and sills intruded axial parts of the basin succession through Mesozoic time. Steep faults along the northwestern margin of the basin are Middle Cretaceous and older. Part of the northwestern rim of Sverdrup Basin sagged in latest Cretaceous time, becomingpart of the Arctic continental terrace. In the Late Cretaceous and early Tertiary a system of large grabens developed through the southern part of the Innuitian region, linking Canada Basin with Baffin Bay; about the same time, uplift formed some large arches in the northeastern part of the region. Middle Eocene and older rocks were laterally compressed by a phase of pre-Miocene folding and faulting. Some uplift took place in Oligocene or Miocene time on Axel Heiberg Island. The distribution of recent earth quakes does not indicate the presence of modern active plate margins.


2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ad. Kilias ◽  
W. Frisch ◽  
A. Avgerinas ◽  
I. Dunkl ◽  
G. Falalakis ◽  
...  

The geometry of kinematics and the deformation history of the Pelagonian nappe pile during the Alpine orogeny have been studied in Northern Greece and FYROM. Deformation was started in Middle-Late Jurassic time and was initially associated with ocean-floor subduction followed by ophiolites obduction, nappe stacking and duplication of the Pelagonian continent. The footwall Pelagonian segment from top to bottom was metamorphosed under greenschist to amphibolit facies conditions and a relative high pressure (T = 450o to 620o C and P = 12,5 to 8 kb). Blueschist facies metamorphic assemblages of Late Jurassic age are immediately developed between both hangingwall and footwall Pelagonian segments. Transgressive Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous neritic limestones and clastic sediments on the top of the obducted ophiolites are maybe related to extension and basins formation simultaneously with the nappe stacking and metamorphism at the lower structural levels of the Pelagonian nappes. Contractional tectonics and nappe stacking continued during the Albian-Aptian time. Simultaneously retrogression and pressure decreasing taken place at the tectonic lower Pelagonian footwall segment. Low grade mylonitic shear zones, possible related to extension, are developed during Late Cretaceous time simultaneously with basins formation and sedimentation of neritic Late Cretaceous to Paleocene limestones and flysch. Intense shortening and imbrication under semi-ductile to brittle conditions occurred during Paleocene to Eocene time resulting the onset of the dome like formation of the footwall Pelagonian segment. The next stages of deformation from Oligocene to Quaternary are related to brittle extension and the final uplift and configuration of the Pelagonian nappe pile.


Nature ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 488 (7410) ◽  
pp. 205-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas R. Longrich ◽  
Bhart-Anjan S. Bhullar ◽  
Jacques A. Gauthier

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