diffusive loss of argon in response to melt vein formation in polygenetic impact melt breccias many planetary surfaces in the solar system have experienced prolonged bombardment with each impact new rocks can be assembled that incorporate freshly generated impact melts with fragments of older rocks some breccias can become polygenetic containing multiple generations of impact melt products and can potentially provide important insights into the extensive bombardment history of a region however the amount of chronological information that can be extracted from such samples depends on how well the mineral isotopic systems of geochronometers can preserve the ages of individual melt generations without being disturbed by younger events we model the thermal evolution of impact melt veins and the resulting loss of ar from k bearing phases common in impact melt breccias to assess the potential for preserving the 40ar 39ar ages of individual melt generations our model results demonstrate that millimeter scale clast free melt veins cause significant heating of adjacent host rock minerals and can cause detectable ar loss in contact zones that are generally thinner than and at most about the same thickness as the vein width the incorporation of cold clasts in melt veins reduces the magnitudes of heating and ar loss in the host rocks and ar loss can be virtually undetectable for sufficiently clast rich veins quantitative evidence of the timing of impacts as measured with the 40ar 39ar method can be preserved in polygenetic impact melt breccias particularly for those containing mm scale bodies of clast bearing melt products

high pressure phases in shock induced melt veins of the umbarger l6 chondrite constraints of shock pressure we report a previously undocumented set of high pressure minerals in shock induced melt veins of the umbarger l6 chondrite high pressure minerals were identified with transmission electron microscopy tem using selected area electron diffraction and energy dispersive x ray spectroscopy ringwoodite fa30 akimotoite en11fs89 and augite en42wo33fs25 were found in the silicate matrix of the melt vein representing the crystallization from a silicate melt during the shock pulse ringwoodite fa27 and hollandite structured plagioclase were also found as polycrystalline aggregates in the melt vein representing solid state transformation or melting with subsequent crystallization of entrained host rock fragments in the vein in addition fe2sio4 spinel fa66 fa99 and stishovite crystallized from a feo sio2 rich zone in the melt vein which formed by shock melting of feo sio2 rich material that had been altered and metasomatized before shock based on the pressure stabilities of the high pressure minerals ringwoodite akimotoite and ca clinopyroxene the melt vein crystallized at approximately 18 gpa the fe2sio4 spinel stishovite assemblage in the feo sio2 rich melts is consistent with crystallization of the melt vein matrix at the pressure up to 18 gpa the crystallization pressure of 18 gpa is much lower than the 4590 gpa pressure one would conclude from the s6 shock effects in melt veins stffler et al 1991 and somewhat less than the 25 30 gpa inferred from s5 shock effects schmitt 2000 found in the bulk rock

laser probe 40ar 39ar studies of the peace river shocked l6 chondrite abstract samples of matrix and melt glass from the shocked l6 chondrite peace river have been subjected to 40ar 39ar analysis using both stepped heating and localised outgassing by a laser probe stepped heating studies of three distinct samples of matrix gave indistinguishable and unusually well defined low temperature 40ar 39ar plateaux corresponding to an age of 450 30 ma in an attempt to investigate whether or not this plateau age is meaningful i e the time of a major collision event involving the parent body or is an artefact resulting from partial degassing during the fragmentation of the parent body which commenced the exposure of peace river to cosmic rays 40 ma ago we have used a laser probe to analyse ar from single 80 m diameter laser pits which release gas from a few micrograms of sample on this scale no areas have ages younger than the plateau age supporting the view that it is not an artefact measurements on the melt glass gave variable and meaningless ages in some cases greater than the age of the solar system due to retention of 40ar and loss of k during melting followed by rapid quenching this observation indicates the danger of attempts to date impact melt glass directly the observation that argon has been retained by the glass and lost by the matrix can be understood in terms of a range of plausible annealing histories

prediction of the behaviour of landslide dams using a geomorphological dimensionless index landslide dams are a common phenomenon they form when a landslide reaches the bottom of a river valley causing a blockage the first effect of such a dam is the infilling of a lake that inundates the areas upstream while the possibility of a sudden dam collapse with a rapid release of the impounded waters poses a higher flood risk to the downstream areas the results of the main inventories carried out to date on landslide dams have been examined to determine criteria for forecasting landslide dam evolution with particular emphasis on the assessment of dam stability not all landslides result in the blockage of a river channel this only occurs with ones that can move a large amount of material with moderate or high velocities in most cases these landslides are triggered by rainfall events or high magnitude earthquakes a relationship also exists between the volume of the displaced material and the landslide dam stability several authors have proposed that landslide dam behaviour can be forecast by defining various geomorphological indexes that result from the combination of variables identifying both the dam and the dammed river channel further developments of this geomorphological approach are presented in this paper by the definition of a dimensionless blockage index starting with an analysis of 84 episodes selected worldwide it proved to be a useful tool for making accurate predictions concerning the fate of a landslide dam copyright 2002 john wiley sons ltd

spatial distribution of landslides triggered by the 2008 ms 8 0 wenchuan earthquake china abstract the ms 8 0 wenchuan earthquake of may 12 2008 is one of the most disastrous earthquakes in china the earthquake triggered tens of thousands of landslides over a broad area including shallow disrupted landslides rock falls deep seated landslides and rock avalanches some of which buried large sections of some towns and dammed the rivers the purpose of this study is to investigate correlations between the occurrence of landslides with geologic and geomorphologic conditions and seismic parameters over 56 000 earthquake triggered landslides with a total area of 811 km 2 are interpreted using aerial photographs and remote sensing images taken following the earthquake the spatial distribution of these landslides is analyzed statistically using both landslide point density lpd defined as the number of landslides per square kilometer and landslide area density lad the percentage of the area affected by landslides to determine how the occurrence of landslides correlates with distance from the epicenter distance from the major surface rupture seismic intensity and peak ground acceleration pga slope angle slope aspect elevation and lithology it is found that both lad and lpd have strong positive correlations with slope steepness distance from the major surface rupture and seismic intensity and that pre sinian schist and cambrian sandstone and siltstone intercalated with slate have the most concentrated landslide activities followed by the permian limestone intercalated with shale and devonian limestone statistical analyses also indicate that the major surface rupture has influence on the spatial distribution of landslides because lad and lpd are relatively higher on the hanging wall than on the footwall however the correlation between the occurrence of landslides with distance from the epicenter of the earthquake is complicated rather than a relatively simple negative correlation as found from other reported cases of earthquakes this is possibly due to complicated rupture processes of the earthquake

numerical modelling of impact melt production in porous rocks abstract melting of rocks by impact is a fundamental geologic process that results from shock wave compression and subsequent release from high pressure shock melted material is found in many terrestrial craters however most impact craters in sedimentary targets which are typically porous have been reported as containing significantly less melt than craters in nonporous crystalline targets to investigate the effect of porosity on shock melting we present a numerical modelling approach that combines a porosity compaction model with an equation of state for the solid component to demonstrate that our model accurately calculates shock pressures in porous materials we compare these results with hugoniot data for porous quartzite coconino sandstone and calcite our results show that the presence of porosity significantly reduces the critical pressure required for melting which enhances melt production we show that this effect is reduced but not totally diminished by faster shock wave decay in porous materials so that all other things being equal impact melt production is greater when target porosity is higher we conducted a series of simulations of impacts into targets of different material composition quartzite calcite dunite and porosity of up to 50 and varied the impact velocity between 6 and 50 km s we found a significant increase in the production of impact melt with increasing velocity in agreement with several previous studies and quantify the net increase in impact melt due to target porosity for the nonporous case our results agree well with estimated melt volumes at terrestrial impact craters over a range in size 7 90 km in diameter in porous targets our results contradict the widely cited observation of a melt deficiency in sedimentary target craters however our model results agree well with recently revised estimates of melt volumes at terrestrial craters formed in sedimentary or mixed sedimentary and crystalline targets this further strengthens the view that substantial volumes of impact melt should be produced during impacts into porous sedimentary targets and that the apparent paucity of impact melt in some sedimentary target craters may be due to difficulties in recognizing impact melts derived from sedimentary rocks

fractional crystallization of olivine melt inclusion in shock induced chondritic melt vein abstract the formation of ringwoodite wadsleyite and majorite from their parental low pressure polymorphs in melt veins in chondritic meteorites is usually interpreted to be the result of shock induced solid state phase transformation formation and survival of individual mineral melt enclaves in the chondritic high pressure melt was not considered a viable possibility we report evidence for melting of individual large olivine fragments entrained in melt veins their survival as melt enclaves in the chondritic melts and their subsequent fractional crystallization at high pressures and temperatures the fractionally crystallized olivine melt enclaves appear to be ubiquitous in chondrites in contrast ca poor pyroxene fragments in the same veins and ca poor pyroxene in chondrules entrained do not show any sign of melting texture and compositions of olivine fragments are indicative of fractional crystallization from individual olivine melts alone fragments of original unzoned olivine fa 24 26 melted and melts subsequently fractionally crystallized to mg rich wadsleyite fa 6 10 and mg poor ringwoodite fa 28 33 with a compositional gap of 26 mol fayalite in contrast compositions of ringwoodite and wadsleyite that emerged from solid sate phase transformations are identical to that of parental olivine thus erasing any source of enigma the olivine monomineralic melts barely show any signs of mixing with the chondritic liquid prior to or during their individual fractional crystallization our findings demonstrate that the formation of high pressure minerals during shock events in asteroids also results from melting and fractional crystallization from some individual mineral melts that barely mixed with the chondritic melt host a mechanism previously not recognized or accepted

coherent and subsequent incoherent ringwoodite growth in olivine of shocked l6 chondrites abstract pervasive replacement of original olivine grains by ringwoodite adjacent to a shock melt vein of yamato 791384 l6 chondrite was observed with a feg sem in these olivines we observed three distinct olivine ringwoodite textures arranged in a spatially successive arrangement from the wall of the shock melt vein into the olivine grains 1 polycrystalline ringwoodite 2 oriented several sets of ringwoodite lamellae and 3 oriented single lamellae tem images show that the polycrystalline and oriented several sets of lamellae parts consist of polycrystalline ringwoodite indicating that phase transformation from olivine to ringwoodite is controlled by incoherent growth mechanism on the other hand the set of oriented single lamellae consists of thin ringwoodite platelets

mechanisms of ringwoodite formation in shocked meteorites evidence from l5 chondrite dhofar 1970 the formation of the high pressure compositional equivalents of olivine and pyroxene has been well documented within and surrounding shock induced veins in chondritic meteorites formed by crystallization from a liquid or solid state phase transformation typically polycrystalline ringwoodite grains have a narrow range of compositions that overlap with those of their olivine precursors whereas the formation of iron enriched ringwoodite has been documented from only a handful of meteorites here we report backscattered electron images quantitative wavelength dispersive spectrometry wds analyses qualitative wds elemental x ray maps and micro raman spectra that reveal the presence of fe rich ringwoodite fa44 63 as fine grained 500 nm polycrystalline rims on olivine fa24 25 wall rock and as clasts engulfed by shock melt in a previously unstudied l5 chondrite dhofar 1970 crystallization of majorite magnesiowustite in the vein interior and metastable mineral assemblages within 35 m of the vein margin attest to rapid crystallization of a superheated shock melt 2300 k from 20 25 gpa to ambient pressure and temperature the texture and composition of bright polycrystalline ringwoodite rims fa44 63 mno 0 01 0 08 wt surrounding dark polycrystalline olivine fa8 14 mno 0 56 0 65 wt implies a solid state transformation mechanism in which fe was preferentially partitioned to ringwoodite the spatial association between ringwoodite and shock melt suggests that the rapidly fluctuating thermal regimes experienced by chondritic minerals in contact with shock melt are necessary to both drive phase transformation but also to prevent back transformation

distribution pattern of earthquake induced landslides triggered by the 12 may 2008 wenchuan earthquake abstract this paper presents the preliminary results of an extensive study of the mapping the distribution of landslides triggered by the wenchuan earthquake in sichuan province china on 12 may 2008 an extensive landslide interpretation was carried out using a large set of optical high resolution satellite images e g aster alos cartosat 1 spot 5 and ikonos as well as air photos for both the pre and post earthquake situation landslide scarps were mapped as points using multi temporal visual image interpretation taking into account shape tone texture pattern elevation and ridge and valley orientation nearly 60 000 individual landslide scarps were mapped the landslide distribution map was compared with the inventory map that was prepared directly after the earthquake which contains about 11 000 individual landslide points through the calculation of normalized landslide isopleths maps remarkable differences were observed as the earlier inventory mapping did not consider the pre earthquake situation and did not consider all individual landslides as part of the landslide inventory landslides were identified that had blocked the drainage and had formed landslide dams the landslide distribution was compared with a number of aspects such as the seismic parameters distance to epicenter distance to fault rupture co seismic fault geometry and co seismic slip distribution and geology the most remarkable correlation found was with the co seismic slip distribution and the fault geometry landslide distribution in the section of the fault that had mainly a thrust component with low angle fault plane was found to be much higher than the sections that had steeper fault angles and a major strike slip component

analysis of landslide dams induced by the 2008 wenchuan earthquake abstract landslide dams caused by earthquakes are extremely hazardous disruptions of the flow of water and sediment in mountain rivers capable of delivering large outburst floods that may devastate downstream areas we analyzed a unique inventory of 828 landslide dams triggered by the m w 7 9 2008 wenchuan tectonic earthquake china constituting 1 4 of the 60 000 coseismic slope failures mapped and attributed to this event while 501 landslides blocked the rivers completely the remainder caused only partial damming or channel diversion the spatial distribution of landslide dams follows the same trend of that of the total landslide distribution with landslide dams being most abundant in the steep watersheds of the hanging wall of the yingxiu beichuan thrust fault and in the northeastern part of the strike slip fault near qingchuan besides the co seismic landslide density the river width also played a key role in determining the landslide dam formation narrow rivers are more prone to be dammed than the wide rivers the correlation between river width and landslide dam volume follows a linear relation which can be used to roughly estimate the dam formation possibility however the applicability of this correlation needs to be validated in other regions the decay failure rate of dams defined here as the percentage of the number and area of landslide dams that have failed over time shows that 25 of dams accounting for 30 of total landslide dam area failed one week after the earthquake these percentages increased to 60 within 1 month and to 90 within 1 year the geomorphometric parameters were analyzed revealing power law relations between landslide area and dam width landslide source area and dam area as well as lake area and lake volume the inventory presented in this study will enrich the worldwide earthquake induced landslide dam database and will also contribute to a better understanding of the post earthquake dam decay

discriminant analysis of the geomorphic characteristics and stability of landslide dams article i nfo landslides can cause the formation of dams but these dams often fail soon after lake formation thus rapidly evaluating the stability of a landslide dam is crucial for effective hazard mitigation this study utilizes discriminant analysis based on a japanese dataset consisting of 43 well documented landslide dams to determine the significant variables including log transformed peak flow or catchment area and log transformed dam height width and length in hierarchical order which affect the stability of a landslide dam the high overall prediction power 88 4 of the 43 training cases are correctly classified and the high cross validation accuracy 86 demonstrate the robustness of the proposed discriminant models phwl with variables including log transformed peak flow and log transformed dam height width and length and ahwl with variables including log transformed catchment area and log transformed dam height width and length compared to a previously proposed dbi index based graphic approach the discriminant model ahv which uses the log transformed catchment area dam height and dam volume as relevant variables shows better ability to evaluate the stability of landslide dams although these discriminant models are established using a japanese dataset only the present multivariate statistical approach can be applied for an expanded dataset without any difficulty when more completely documented worldwide landslide dam data are available

high pressure phases in a shock induced melt vein of the tenham l6 chondrite constraints on shock pressure and duration abstract the microtexture and mineralogy of a 580 m wide melt vein in the tenham l6 chondrite were investigated using field emission scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy to better understand the shock conditions the melt vein consists of a matrix of silicate plus metal sulfide grains that crystallized from immiscible melts and sub rounded fragments of the host chondrite that have been entrained in the melt and transformed to polycrystalline high pressure silicates the melt vein matrix contains two distinct textures and mineral assemblages corresponding to the vein edge and interior the 30 m wide vein edge consists of vitrified silicate perovskite ringwoodite akimotoite majorite with minor metal sulfide the 520 m wide vein interior consists of majorite magnesiowustite with irregular metal sulfide blebs although these mineral assemblages are distinctly different the pressure stabilities of both assemblages are consistent with crystallization from similar pressure conditions the melt vein edge crystallized at about 23 25 gpa and the vein interior crystallized at about 21 25 gpa this relatively narrow pressure range suggests that the melt vein either crystallized at a constant equilibrium shock pressure of 25 gpa or during a relatively slow pressure release using a finite element heat transfer program to model the thermal history of this melt vein during shock we estimate that the time required to quench this 580 m wide vein was 40 ms because the entire vein contains high pressure minerals that crystallized from the melt the shock pressure duration was at least 40 ms using a synthetic hugoniot for tenham and assuming that the sample experienced a peak shock pressure of 25 gpa near the impact site we estimate that the tenham parent body experienced an impact with collision velocity 2 km s based on a one dimensional planar impact model we estimate that the projectile size was 150 m in thickness

natural occurrence of fe2sio4 spinel in the shocked umbarger l6 chondrite here we report the first natural occurrence of fe 2 sio 4 spinel in a shock induced melt pocket of the umbarger l6 chondrite optical microscopy scanning electron microscopy electron microprobe analysis and analytical transmission electron microscopy were used to examine the sample fe 2 sio 4 spinel was identified by tem using selected area electron diffraction and energy dispersive x ray spectroscopy the symmetry of the diffraction patterns the ratios of d spacings and interplanar angles are consistent with the spinel structure however the cell parameter of fe 2 sio 4 spinel 8 52 a calculated from d spacing data is 3 5 larger than that of synthetic fe 2 sio 4 spinel 8 235 a chemical analyses of the spinel show olivine stoichiometry with fe fe mg ratios ranging from 0 62 to 0 99 fe 2 sio 4 spinel and stishovite occur within feo sio 2 rich zones in the melt pocket surrounded by sio 2 rich glass and fe rich phyllosilicates fe 2 sio 4 spinel plus stishovite also occur with other high pressure minerals in the melt pocket ringwoodite akimotoite augite and hollandite structured plagioclase we infer that the fe 2 sio 4 spinel crystallized from a zone of feo sio 2 rich melt within the shock induced melt pocket two models for feo sio 2 rich melt are discussed it was either a residual melt after crystallization of mgo rich silicates in a chondritic melt pocket or it was produced by shock melting of feo sio 2 rich material

the impact pseudotachylitic breccia controversy insights from first isotope analysis of vredefort impact generated melt rocks abstract besides impact melt rock several large terrestrial impact structures notably the sudbury canada and vredefort south africa structures exhibit considerable occurrences of a second type of impact generated melt rock so called pseudotachylitic breccia previously often termed pseudotachylite the term today reserved in structural geology for friction melt in shear or fault zones at the vredefort dome the eroded central uplift of the largest and oldest known terrestrial impact structure pseudotachylitic breccia is well exposed with many massive occurrences of tens of meters width and many hundreds of meters extent genesis of these breccias has been discussed variably in terms of melt formation due to friction melting melting due to decompression after initial shock compression decompression melting upon formation collapse of a central uplift or a combination of these processes in addition it was recently suggested that they could have formed by the infiltration of impact melt into the crater floor coming off a coherent melt sheet and under assimilation of wall rock even seismic shaking has been invoked field evidence for generation of such massive melt bodies by friction on large shear fault zones is missing also no evidence for the generation of massive pseudotachylitic breccias in rocks of low to moderate shock degree by melting upon pressure release after shock compression has been demonstrated the efficacy of seismic shaking to achieve sufficient melting as a foundation for massive pseudotachylitic melt generation as typified by the breccias of the sudbury and vredefort structures has so far remained entirely speculative the available petrographic and chemical evidence has thus been interpreted to favor either decompression melting i e in situ generation of melt upon central uplift collapse or the impact melt infiltration hypothesis importantly all the past clast population and chemical analyses have invariably supported an origin of these breccias from local lithologies only here the first rb sr sm nd and u pb isotopic data for vredefort pseudotachylitic breccias and their host rocks in comparison to data for vredefort granophyre impact melt rock are presented they strongly support that the pseudotachylitic breccias were exclusively formed from local precursor lithologies in agreement with earlier isotopic results for sudbury breccia and chemical results for vredefort pseudotachylitic breccias a contribution from a granophyre like impact melt component to form vredefort pseudotachylitic breccia is not indicated the most likely process for the genesis of voluminous pseudotachylitic breccias in large impact structures remains decompression melting upon formation and collapse of the central uplift during the modification stage of impact cratering

high pressure minerals in shocked meteorites heavily shocked meteorites contain various types of high pressure polymorphs of major minerals olivine pyroxene feldspar and quartz and accessory minerals chromite and ca phosphate these high pressure minerals are micron to submicron sized and occur within and in the vicinity of shock induced melt veins and melt pockets in chondrites and lunar howardite eucrite diogenite hed and martian meteorites their occurrence suggests two types of formation mechanisms 1 solid state high pressure transformation of the host rock minerals into monomineralic polycrystalline aggregates and 2 crystallization of chondritic or monomineralic melts under high pressure based on experimentally determined phase relations their formation pressures are limited to the pressure range up to 25 gpa textural crystallographic and chemical characteristics of high pressure minerals provide clues about the impact events of meteorite parent bodies including their size and mutual collision velocities and about the mineralogy of deep planetary interiors the aim of this article is to review and summarize the findings on natural high pressure minerals in shocked meteorites that have been reported over the past 50 years

formation of high pressure minerals in shocked l6 chondrite yamato 791384 constraints on shock conditions and parent body size we have studied the high pressure phases observed in yamato 791384 l6 chondrite host meteorite mainly consists of olivine pyroxenes and plagioclase glass mineral fragments observed in the veins and the vein margin region of the host meteorite were partially or totally transformed into high pressure phases ringwoodite majorite akimotoite naalsi3o8 hollandite and jadeite matrix of the shock vein contains majorite pyrope solid solution the spatial distribution indicates that high pressure phases are present in the shock veins and host rocks adjacent to the shock veins investigation of the high pressure phases revealed that in y791384 fragments and adjacent matrix were subjected to pressures around of 18 23 gpa and the vein experienced temperatures around 2300 c during the shock event ringwoodite lamellae were observed in the host olivine adjacent to the vein kinetic investigation for ringwoodite lamellar growth in olivine indicates that the shocked meteorite experienced the pressure for at least 4 s such long duration of the pressure pulse indicates that the size of the parent body was greater than 10 km

north polar stratigraphy and the paleo erg of mars an accurate self consistent way of coregistering the imaging and topographic data sets of the mars global surveyor mission was developed and used to begin a stratigraphic analysis of the northern polar region a distinct change in the layering style exists at a definite stratigraphic horizon near the base of the north polar layered deposits occurrences of the contact between two distinct layered units can be mapped hundreds of kilometers apart at nearly the same mars orbiter laser altimeter mola elevation the lower layered unit has a consistent association with sand dunes leading to the conclusion that it is an eroding sand rich deposit that predates most of the overlying north polar layered deposits which exhibits the expected features of a dust ice mixture these results suggest that an areally extensive erg was in existence before the present ice cap and that the present circumpolar erg is likely composed of material reworked from this older deposit the volume of this lower unit is estimated to be on the order of 10 5 km 3 the presence of this deposit implies that there existed a period in mars history when there was no icy polar cap a dramatic climatic change leading to the deposition of the upper layered icy unit in the present day polar layered deposits represents a major event in mars history however owing to uncertainties in the mechanics of layered deposits formation such an event cannot be dated at this time

statistical approach to earthquake induced landslide susceptibility susceptibility analysis for predicting earthquake induced landslides has most frequently been done using deterministic methods multivariate statistical methods have not previously been applied in this study however we introduce a statistical methodology that uses the intensity of earthquake shaking as a landslide triggering factor this methodology is applied in a study of shallow earthquake induced landslides in central western taiwan the results show that we can accurately interpret landslide distribution in the study area and predict the occurrence of landslides in neighboring regions this susceptibility model is capable of predicting shallow landslides induced during an earthquake scenario with similar range of ground shaking without requiring the use of geotechnical groundwater or failure depth data

pseudotachylyte controversy fact or friction high speed slip experiments performed on westerly granite using friction welding apparatus reveal that comminution is an essential precursor to melting by friction observations of slip surfaces via analytical scanning electron microscopy sem document the following sequence of events occurring in 2 s with increasing velocity up to 2 m s fracture progressive comminution surface melting of mineral fragments fragment to fragment adhesion and finally production of a fragment laden melt supported suspension explosive dehydration and melting of the epidote group mineral allanite indicates that temperatures of at least 1000 c were realized at the interface this is corroborated by calculation of the temperature rise for the known operating conditions contrary to earlier proposals these results show that comminution and frictional melting are complementary and not mutually exclusive processes depending on the velocity shear stress displacement relations prevailing during frictional slip rocks produced in seismogenic zones can be predominantly comminuted wall rock or fragment melt mixes pseudotachylytes

the characteristics of the landslides triggered by the wenchuan ms 8 0 earthquake from anxian to beichuan abstract this paper presents a quantitative analysis of the number and area of the landslides triggered by the wenchuan ms 8 0 earthquake from anxian to beichuan in this study the controlling factors of landslides are obtained from geological maps relief amplitude slope and topographic roughness calculated from dem data in arcgis 9 2 a total of 4134 landslides are identified from digital aero image of 1 m resolution covering 19 7 km2 that accounts for 6 4 of the study area the number of landslides with areas less than 5000 m2 is up to 85 22 the smallest landslide is 6 m2 and the largest 1515 000 m2 the number of landslides which have occurred is 1 6 times more prevalent at hanging walls as opposed to foot walls also the relationship between the numbers of landslides and the distances to an earthquake rupture at a hanging wall is linear but exponential at a footwall these results prove that landslide activity is more severe at hanging walls than at foot walls the outcrop area of geologic unit is proportional to the number of landslides except the jurassic triassic and quaternary units r2 0 952 in the study area and landslide density is 19 meanwhile the area of a landslide is linearly proportional to outcrop area of geologic unit except jurassic lower cambrian and quaternary unit r2 0 8279 in the study area and appear to indicate that the lithology does not play an important role in landslides in the study area earthquake triggered landslides tend to be concentrated in specific zones associated with the event controlling parameters such as reliefs slopes and topographic roughness the landslides occurred particularly in the range of 600 1293 m relief amplitudes and the number in this range amounts to 90 of total slides in the studied region moreover landslides easily occurred in the curvature 1 15 with slope between 5 and 55 in addition landslides also usually occurred in the range of 1 1 5 topographic roughness therefore these correlations provide a way to assess regional landslide hazards and are of great significance to regional geohazard planning and prediction

thermal diffusivity and conductivity of olivine wadsleyite and ringwoodite to 20 gpa and 1373 k abstract we present results of lattice thermal diffusivity measurements on mg0 9fe0 1 2sio4 olivine and its high pressure polymorphs wadsleyite and ringwoodite under mantle conditions we used the angstrom method on cylindrical samples in multianvil apparatus at pressures up to 20 gpa and temperatures up to 1373 k because of the fine polycrystallinity of the specimens 30 40 m or less there is strong scattering absorption of light and suppression of radiative transport so that the lattice vibrational component is the dominant heat transfer mode lattice thermal conductivities were calculated from the thermal diffusivity results using heat capacity and equation of state data olivine thermal conductivities are consistent with previous results obtained at 1 atm e g j am ceramic soc 38 1954 107 j geophys res 77 1972 6966 science 283 1999 1699 thermal conductivity increases by approximately 30 at the transition from olivine to wadsleyite corresponding to the 410 km discontinuity and a further but smaller increase may occur at the transition from wadsleyite to ringwoodite for each of these phases lattice conductivity closely follows a t 1 2 dependence on temperature t phys rev 119 1960 507 j geophys res 79 1974 703 brown 2002 if such a dependence applies to other silicates and complex crystals there should be a useful way to estimate conductivities at high temperatures from room temperature measurements

l chondrite asteroid breakup tied to ordovician meteorite shower by multiple isochron 40ar 39ar dating radiochronometry of l chondritic meteorites yields a rough age estimate for a major collision in the asteroid belt about 500 myr ago fossil meteorites from sweden indicate a highly increased influx of extraterrestrial matter in the middle ordovician 480 myr ago an association with the l chondrite parent body event was suggested but a definite link is precluded by the lack of more precise radiometric ages suggested ages range between 450 30 myr and 520 60 myr and can neither convincingly prove a single breakup event nor constrain the delivery times of meteorites from the asteroid belt to earth here we report the discovery of multiple 40ar 39ar isochrons in shocked l chondrites particularly the regolith breccia ghubara that allow the separation of radiogenic argon from multiple excess argon components this approach applied to several l chondrites yields an improved age value that indicates a single asteroid breakup event at 470 6 myr fully consistent with a refined age estimate of the middle ordovician meteorite shower at 467 3 1 6 myr according to a geologic time scale 2004 our results link these fossil meteorites directly to the l chondrite asteroid destruction rapidly transferred from the asteroid belt the increased terrestrial meteorite influx most likely involved larger projectiles that contributed to an increase in the terrestrial cratering rate which implies severe environmental stress

the 1786 earthquake triggered landslide dam and subsequent dam break flood on the dadu river southwestern china abstract chinese historic documents recorded that on june 1 1786 a strong m 7 75 earthquake occurred in the kangding luding area sichuan southwestern china resulting in a large landslide that fell into the dadu river as a result a landslide dam blocked the river ten days later the sudden breaching of the dam resulted in catastrophic downstream flooding historic records document over 100 000 deaths by the flood this may be the most disastrous event ever caused by landslide dam failures in the world although a lot of work has been carried out to determine the location magnitude and intensity of the 1786 earthquake relatively little is known about the occurrence and nature of the landslide dam in this paper the dam was reconstructed using historic documents and geomorphic evidence it was found that the landslide dam was about 70 m high and it created a lake with a water volume of about 50 106 m3 and an area of about 1 7 km2 the landslide dam breached suddenly due to a major aftershock on june 10 1786 the peak discharge at the dam breach was estimated using regression equations and a physically based predictive equation the possibility of a future failure of the landslide seems high particularly due to inherent seismic risk and detailed geotechnical investigations are strongly recommended for evaluating the current stability of the landslide

shock metamorphism of ordinary chondrites a revised petrographic classification of progressive stages of shock metamorphism of ordinary chondrites is proposed six stages of shock s1 to s6 are defined based on shock effects in olivine and plagioclase as recognized by thin section microscopy the characteristic shock effects of each shock stage are s1 unshocked sharp optical extinction of olivine s2 very weakly shocked undulatory extinction of olivine s3 weakly shocked planar fractures in olivine s4 moderately shocked mosaicism in olivine s5 strongly shocked isotropization of plagioclase maskelynite and planar deformation features in olivine and s6 very strongly shocked recrystallization of olivine sometimes combined with phase transformations ringwoodite and or phases produced by dissociation reactions s6 effects are always restricted to regions adjacent to melted portions of a sample which is otherwise only strongly shocked in stages s3 to s6 localized melting results from stress and temperature peaks which locally deviate from the equilibration shock pressure due to differences in shock impedance these melting effects are a opaque melt veins shock veins b melt pockets with interconnecting melt veins c melt dikes and d troilite metal deposits in fractures based on a critical evaluation of data from shock recovery experiments a shock pressure calibration for the six shock stages is proposed which defines the s1 s2 s2 s3 s3 s4 s4 s5 and s5 s6 transitions at 5 5 10 15 20 30 35 and 45 55 gpa respectively whole rock melting and formation of impact melt rocks or melt breccias occurs at about 75 90 gpa the symbol for the shock stage may be used in combination with the symbol for the petrologic type to abbreviate the complete classification of a chondrite e g h5 s3 we propose this new shock classification and pressure calibration system to replace previous systems which are out of date with respect to the pressure calibration nominally restricted to l chondrites and based on incomplete and in part illdefined sets of shock effects we have classified seventy six ordinary chondrites using the new classification system and conclude the following 1 1 shock effects and the sequence of progressively increasing degrees of shock metamorphism are very similar in h l and ll groups differences in the frequency distribution of shock stages are relatively minor e g l chondrites appear to have the largest fraction with stages s5 and s6 this suggests that the collisional histories of the h l and ll parent bodies were similar 2 2 petrologic type 3 chondrites are deficient in stages s4 to s6 and with increasing petrologic type the frequency of stages s4 to s6 increases we suggest that the more porous and volatile rich type 3 chondrites are subject to melting at a lower shock pressure than the nonporous chondrites of higher petrologic type volatiles trapped in pores cause shock induced dispersal of the shocked and melted material into small particles which are not expected to survive as meteorites 3 3 stage s3 is the most abundant in nearly all petrologic types 4 4 at shock pressures in excess of about 35 gpa s5 and s6 4he and 40ar are almost completely lost pressures below 10 gpa s1 and s2 do not cause noble gas losses

distribution of active rock uplift along the eastern margin of the tibetan plateau inferences from bedrock channel longitudinal profiles 1 current models of long term river incision into bedrock suggest that the local rate of differential rock uplift should exert a primary control on the gradient of channel longitudinal profiles however discrimination of this effect from the influence of variations in substrate erodibility sediment flux precipitation and transient changes in profile shape has proved difficult in practice here we investigate the controls on the spatial distribution of bedrock channel gradients adjacent to the sichuan basin in an effort to assess the degree and nature of active deformation along this margin of the tibetan plateau analysis of river longitudinal profiles utilizing a channel steepness index a measure of profile gradient normalized for drainage area reveals a zone of anomalously steep channels adjacent to the topographic front of the plateau margin channel profiles are systematically less steep in their headwater reaches on the plateau and in their lower reaches east of the plateau margin comparison of steepness indices to mapped lithologic variations reveals that lithology has only a limited influence on channel gradient in this field area we observe no systematic relationship between steepness indices and upstream drainage area channels of all size are steeper near the plateau margin we argue that these systematic changes are not readily explained as a consequence of increased sediment flux or of orographic precipitation we are led to conclude that steep channel profiles along the topographic front of the plateau reflect active differential rock uplift between this region and the foreland

asteroidal source of l chondrite meteorites abstract establishing connections between meteorites and their parent asteroids is an important goal of planetary science several links have been proposed in the past including a spectroscopic match between basaltic meteorites and 4 vesta that are helping scientists understand the formation and evolution of the solar system bodies here we show that the shocked l chondrite meteorites which represent about two thirds of all l chondrite falls may be fragments of a disrupted asteroid with orbital semimajor axis a 2 8 au this breakup left behind thousands of identified 1 15 km asteroid fragments known as the gefion family fossil l chondrite meteorites and iridium enrichment found in an 467 ma old marine limestone quarry in southern sweden and perhaps also 5 large terrestrial craters with corresponding radiometric ages may be tracing the immediate aftermath of the family forming collision when numerous gefion fragments evolved into the earth crossing orbits by the 5 2 resonance with jupiter this work has major implications for our understanding of the source regions of ordinary chondrite meteorites because it implies that they can sample more distant asteroid material than was previously thought possible

evaluation of factors controlling earthquake induced landslides caused by chi chi earthquake and comparison with the northridge and loma prieta events over 10 000 landslides were triggered by the september 21 1999 chi chi earthquake a large number of these landslides have been mapped from spot images and a smaller number were described in a detailed field investigation geographic information systems gis was used to conduct a spatial characterization of the slope failures including distribution of type size slope angle bedrock geology ground motion and distance from earthquake source the most abundant landslides were shallow disaggregated rock and soil slides landslides occurred primarily in tertiary sedimentary rocks which are well known for their susceptibility to landsliding in many parts of the world landslide concentration values diminish beyond epicentral distances of 40 and 70 km from the epicenter and the surface projection of the fault plane respectively ground motion was found to be the most significant factor in triggering the shallow landslides in the chi chi earthquake overall 74 of all slope failures occurred in regions with vertical ground motions greater than 0 2g and 81 of all slope failures occurred in the region with mean horizontal peak ground accelerations pga greater than 0 15g these factors were used to compare landslides generated by the chi chi earthquake to the landslides triggered by the 1989 loma prieta earthquake and the 1994 northridge earthquake the major difference in distribution of landslides between the chi chi earthquake and the two california earthquakes was the distribution of slope angles in the chi chi earthquake 90 of the failures occurred on slopes steeper than 45 while more than 80 of failures occurred on slopes less than 50 in california apparently reflecting much steeper and tectonically more active geologic setting in taiwan

shock induced deformation of shergottites shock pressures and perturbations of magmatic ages on mars shergottites and chassignites practiced major deformation effects whose nature magnitude and relevance were controversially evaluated and disputatively debated our studies of many shocked shergottites present contrary to numerous previous reports ample evidence for pervasive shock induced melting amounting of at least 23 vol of the shergottite consisting of maskelynite and pyrrhotite partial melting of pyroxene titanomagnetite ilmenite and finding of several high pressure polymorphs and pressure induced dissociation reactions our results cast considerable doubt on using the refractive index ri or cathodoluminescence cl spectra of maskelynite in estimating the magnitudes of peak shock pressure in both shergottites and ordinary chondrites ri of maskelynite was set after quenching of the feldspar liquid before decompression to maskelynite glass followed by glass relaxation after decompression at the closure temperature of relaxation the ri procedure widely practiced in the past 38 years revealed unrealistic very high pressure estimates discrepant with the high pressure mineral inventory in shocked shergottites and ordinary chondrites and with results obtained by robust laboratory static experiments shergottites contain the silica high pressure polymorphs the scrutinyite structured polymorph seifertite a monoclinic ultra dense polymorph of silica with zro2 structure stishovite a dense liquidus assemblage consisting of stishovite na hexa aluminosilicate na cas and both k lingunite and ca lingunite applying individual high pressure silica polymorphs alone like stishovite to estimate the equilibrium shock pressure is inadequate due to the considerable shift of their nominal upper pressure bounds intrinsically induced by spatially variable absorptions of minor oxides like al2o3 na2o feo mgo and tio2 this practice revealed variable pressure estimates even within the same shergottite subjected to the same peak shock pressure occurrence of na cas stishovite lack of the naalsio4 ca ferrite structured polymorph or jadeite indicates that the peak shock pressures barely exceeded 22 gpa we present convincing and ample evidence refuting the claim that the shock induced high pressure inventory in shergottites and ordinary chondrites are disequilibrium assemblages resulted from local pressure spikes in excess of 80 gpa and during the decompression stage such scenario calls for a series of incomplete and quenched retrograde reactions starting with the crystallization of mg silicate perovskite magnesiowustite if the claimed peak shock pressure was in excess of 80 gpa this would be followed by replacement of this pair by majorite pyrope ss magnesiowustite or akimotoite magnesiowustite below 23 gpa and 2000 degrees c polycrystalline ringwoodite above 16 gpa respectively and finally replacement by polycrystalline olivine below 16 gpa such incomplete retrograde reactions were never encountered in any shergottite chassignite or shocked ordinary chondrite so far olivine ringwoodite phase transformation in the l6 y 791384 commences with the coherent mechanism producing ringwoodite lamellae with their 111 planes parallel to the 100 of olivine followed by the incoherent mechanism due to build up of strain in the parental olivine this is in accord with the olivine ringwoodite settings produced in static laboratory experiments in a multi anvil device olivine ringwoodite phase transitions were also encountered in comparable settings in the shergottite nwa 1068 application of experimentally obtained kinetic parameters of the olivine ringwoodite phase transitions reveals possible duration of the natural dynamic events up to few seconds thus unambiguously refuting the claimed disequilibrium decompression mechanism the shock induced pervasive melting of labradorite pyrrhotite titanomagnetite ilmenite and partial melting of clinopyroxene strongly suggests shock induced partial to complete resetting of the ar ar rb sr sm nd re os u pb and lu hf radiometric systems this also casts considerable doubt on the radiometric ages shorter than 575 ma reported in the past 38 years to allegedly be the igneous crystallization ages these short ages probably resulted from partial or total shock induced age resetting c 2012 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

back transformation of high pressure minerals in shocked chondrites low pressure mineral evidence for strong shock post shock annealing of meteorites can destroy their shock induced features particularly high pressure minerals and complicate the estimation of impact pressure temperature conditions however distinguishing post shock annealing features from thermal metamorphism effects can be practically difficult here we report results from mbale a highly shocked l chondrite to investigate the mechanisms kinetics and identification criteria for post shock annealing of high pressure signatures olivine fragments within shock melt veins in mbale occur as chemically heterogeneous nanocrystalline aggregates that contain trace wadsleyite and ringwoodite their strong variation in fayalite content provides evidence of iron partitioning during transformation of olivine to wadsleyite followed by back transformation to olivine after decompression experimental studies of transformation kinetics show that wadsleyite transforms to olivine in seconds at temperatures above 1200 k and in hours at temperatures between 900 and 1200 k thermal models of shock melt cooling show that shock veins in mbale cooled to 1200 k in 1 s the shock pulse must have been shorter than 1 s to provide the high temperature conditions for post shock back transformation of wadsleyite many highly shocked l chondrites which have abundant high pressure minerals must have experienced relatively long shock durations combined with rapid cooling of shock melt regions to preserve high pressure phases the most highly shocked samples such as impact melt breccias lack high pressure phases because of post shock back transformations

geomorphometric characteristics of new zealand landslide dams abstract this study presents results from a quantitative analysis of a new inventory of n 232 landslide dam occurrences in new zealand previously published data were expanded by documentation of recent events and evidence from a regional air photo reconnaissance focused on the upland regions of southwestern south island additional geomorphometric data on landslide dams associated lakes and contributing catchment characteristics were extracted from a 25 m digital elevation model dem augmented by limited ground truthing and compiled in a gis based inventory the new zealand case examples fall into the global trend although they contain both two extremely large features in terms of landslide dam volume vd and lake volume vl analysis suggests that landslide dam height hd landslide dam volume vd lake volume vl contributing catchment area ac and local relief hr are key variables for assessing landslide dam stability independently from other catchment parameters such as lithology climate or dam sedimentology they may be provisionally used as representative characteristics of landslide dams irrespective of environmental boundary conditions such as climate geology or site specific valley geomorphometry three newly proposed dimensionless indices i e the backstow index is basin index ia and relief index ir based on landslide dam height hd allow limited yet promising preliminary assessments of landslide dam stability compared with worldwide examples they also demonstrate a much narrower conditional range for the formation of stable landslide dams in new zealand catchment parameters such as maximum elevation emax upstream relief hr contributing catchment area ac and relief ratio rr are significantly different at sites of former and existing landslide dammed lakes and may be used as independent variables in future terrain based classification schemes generally data are incomplete with underreporting of small and ephemeral landslide dams and over representation of earthquake case studies nonparametric correlation highlights the statistical interdependence between geomorphometric variables as an artefact of initial data calculation while varying accuracy poses a significant drawback for complex multivariate statistical techniques such as principal component cluster or discriminant analyses

sediment dispersed extraterrestrial chromite traces a major asteroid disruption event abundant extraterrestrial chromite grains from decomposed meteorites occur in middle ordovician 480 million years ago marine limestone over an area of 250 000 square kilometers in southern sweden the chromite anomaly gives support for an increase of two orders of magnitude in the influx of meteorites to earth during the mid ordovician as previously indicated by fossil meteorites extraterrestrial chromite grains in mid ordovician limestone can be used to constrain in detail the temporal variations in flux of extraterrestrial matter after one of the largest asteroid disruption events in the asteroid belt in late solar system history

estimating shock pressures based on high pressure minerals in shock induced melt veins of l chondrites here we report the transmission electron microscopy tem observations of the mineral assemblages and textures in shock induced melt veins from seven l chondrites of shock stages ranging from s3 to s6 the mineral assemblages combined with phase equilibrium data are used to constrain the crystallization pressures which can be used to constrain shock pressure in some cases thick melt veins in the tenhaml6 chondrite contain majorite and magnesiowstite in the center and ringwoodite akimotoite vitrified silicate perovskite and majorite in the edge of the vein indicating crystallization pressure of 25 gpa however very thin melt veins 5 30 m wide in tenham contain glass olivine clinopyroxene and ringwoodite suggesting crystallization during transient low pressure excursions as the shock pressure equilibrated to a continuum level melt veins of umbarger include ringwoodite akimotoite and clinopyroxene in the vein matrix and fe2sio4 spinel and stishovite in sio2 feo rich melt indicating a crystallization pressure of 18 gpa the silicate melt veins in roy contain majorite plus ringwoodite indicating pressure of 20 gpa melt veins of ramsdorf and nakhon pathon contain olivine and clinoenstatite indicating pressure of less than 15 gpa melt veins of kunashak and la lande include albite and olivine indicating crystallization at less than 2 5 gpa based upon the assemblages observed crystallization of shock veins can occur before during or after pressure release when the assemblage consists of high pressure minerals and that assemblage is constant across a larger melt vein or pocket the crystallization pressure represents the equilibrium shock pressure

anatomy of black veins in zagami clues to the formation of high pressure phases abstract black melt veins in the martian basaltic meteorite zagami were investigated using analytical transmission electron microscopy with the goal to constrain the mechanisms and ptt conditions that result in the formation of high pressure phases therein our study reveals the existence of a number of high pressure minerals stishovite k and na ca rich hollandites akimotoite silicate ilmenite as well as amorphous grains of silicate perovskite composition crystals of a ferro magnesian silicate titanite with a low ca content have been identified for the first time the veins formed by rapid shear melting and solidified in extremely short times as a consequence the vein melt could not homogeneously mix and it partially preserves the chemical heterogeneity of precursor minerals accounting for the large diversity of high pressure minerals most of the tiny phases directly crystallized from the melt under high pressure at very high temperatures silicate perovskite probably amorphized upon decompression and evolved at its grain boundaries by solid state diffusion toward the lower pressure assemblage wustite stishovite not only do these observations help to understand the formation of high pressure phases in shock events but they also provide clues to the mineralogical complexity that can be expected in planetary mantles

co seismic thrusting rupture and slip distribution produced by the 2008 mw 7 9 wenchuan earthquake china field investigations reveal that the mw 7 9 wenchuan china earthquake of 12 may 2008 produced a 285 km long surface rupture zone with dominantly thrusting slip accompanied by a right lateral component along the central northern segments of the zone and left lateral component along the southern segment along the longmen shan thrust belt eastern margin of the tibetan plateau the co seismic ruptures mainly occurred along the pre existing yingxiu beichuan guanxian anxian and qingchuan faults which are the main faults of the longmen shan thrust belt the displacements measured in the field are approximately 0 5 6 5 m in the vertical typically 1 3 m accompanied by an average left lateral component of 2 m along the 50 km long southernmost segment of the rupture zone and an average right lateral component of 1 m along the 150 km long central northern segments the maximum thrust slip amount is estimated to be 10 m accompanied by 9 m of shortening across the rupture zone this finding is consistent with estimates based on seismic data the rupture length and maximum vertical displacement are the largest among all intracontinental thrust type earthquakes reported to date our findings demonstrate that i the wenchuan earthquake occurred upon pre existing active faults of the longmen shan thrust belt thereby controlling the spatial distribution of co seismic surface rupture and displacement and the rupture processes of the earthquake ii the long rupture length and large thrusting slip resulted from compressive stress associated with eastward extrusion of the tibet plateau as it accommodates the ongoing penetration of the indian plate into the eurasian plate and iii present day shortening strain upon the eastern margin of the tibetan plateau is mostly released by seismic slip along thrust faults within the longmen shan thrust belt

noble gases in fossil micrometeorites and meteorites from 470 myr old sediments from southern sweden and new evidence for the l chondrite parent body breakup event we present noble gas analyses of sediment dispersed extraterrestrial chromite grains recovered from similar to 470 myr old sediments from two quarries hallekis and thorsberg and of relict chromites in a coeval fossil meteorite from the gullhogen quarry all located ill southern sweden both the sediment dispersed grains and the meteorite gullhogen 001 were generated in the l chondrite parent body breakup about 470 myr ago which was also the event responsible for the abundant fossil meteorites previously found in the thorsberg quarry trapped solar noble gases in the sediment dispersed chromite grains have partly been retained during similar to 470 myr of terrestrial residence and despite harsh chemical treatment in the laboratory this shows that chromite is highly retentive for solar noble gases the solar noble gases imply that a sizeable fraction of the sediment dispersed chromite grains are micrometeorites or fragments thereof rather than remnants of larger meteorites the grains in the oldest sediment beds were rapidly delivered to earth likely by direct injection into all orbital resonance in the inner asteroid belt whereas grains in younger sediments arrived by orbital decay due to poynting robertson p r drag the fossil meteorite gullhogen 001 has a low cosmic ray exposure age of similar to 0 9 myr based on new he and ne production rates in chromite determined experimentally this age is comparable to the ages of the fossil meteorites from thorsberg providing additional evidence for very rapid transfer times of material after the l chondrite parent body breakup

earthquake dammed lakes in new zealand eleven small lakes were formed by landslides caused by the 1929 buller earthquake four others were formed by other historic earthquakes in new zealand at least nine other new zealand lakes are also dammed by landslides and were probably formed by prehistoric earthquakes when recognized by morphology synchronous age and areal distribution earthquake dammed lakes could provide an estimate of paleoseismicity for the past few hundred or thousand years

40ar 39ar age of northwest africa 091 more evidence for a link between l chondrites and fossil meteorites abstract most 40ar 39ar ages of l chondrites record an event at approximately 500 ma indicating a large collisional impact at that time however there is a spread in ages from 400 to 600 ma in these meteorites that is greater than the analytical uncertainty identification of and correction for trapped ar in a few l chondrites has given an age of 470 6 ma this age coincides with ordivician fossil meteorites that fell to earth at 467 2 ma as these fossil meteorites were originally l chondrites the apparent conclusion is that a large impact sent a flood of l chondrite material to earth while material that remained on the l chondrite parent body was strongly heated and reset we have reduced 40ar 39ar data for northwest africa 091 using various techniques that appear in the literature including identification and subtraction of trapped ar these techniques give a range of ages from 455 to 520 ma and show the importance of making accurate corrections by using the most straightforward technique to identify and remove a trapped ar component which is neither terrestrial nor primordial an 40ar 39ar age of 475 6 ma is found for northwest africa 091 showing a temporal link to fossil meteorites in addition high temperature releases of northwest africa 091 contain evidence for a second trapped component and subtraction of this component indicates a possible second collisional impact at approximately 800 ma this earlier age coincides with 40ar 39ar ages of some h and l chondrites and lunar samples

non linear effects from variable thermal conductivity and mantle internal heating implications for massive melting and secular cooling of the mantle abstract the temperature dependence of the phonon portion of the thermal conductivity k t p devised by hofmeister science 283 1699 1706 decreases with temperature the same as in the dependence of mantle viscosity such a functional relationship of k t k t 0 thus there can be a tradeoff between the phonon and photon contributions in the conductivity in the presence of internal heating we have conducted two dimensional calculations of mantle convection up to a surface rayleigh number of around five million and an internal heating of chondritic abundance with the extended boussinesq approximation in which the dissipation number has been set to 0 47 and depth dependent thermal expansivity decreasing by a factor of 5 across the mantle the value of the constant mantle viscosity and the amount of internal heating are varied for an enhanced radiative contribution j geophys res 84 b4 1603 1610 the radiative component of the thermal conductivity can exceed the phonon contribution in the upper mantle our results show that in all cases with basal heating the average mantle temperature of the variable conductivity models are higher than those of the corresponding constant conductivity models but the interior thermal difference between the two conductivity models decreases 1 with greater vigor of convection 2 an increase of internal heating and 3 an increase in the radiative contribution to the conductivity the interior mantle temperature is significantly hotter more than 500 c than the constant conductivity model for the k t p model with the less enhanced radiative component science 283 1699 1706 these results would suggest that some sort of massive melting in the young earth might have occurred with k t p and that there should not be so much radioactivity in the lower mantle today without incurring the wrath of some melting we have also studied the effects of k t p on slowing down the mantle secular cooling process by monitoring the gradual decrease in mantle temperature following an imposition of an adiabatic boundary condition at the core mantle boundary a decay time of 3 6 gy has been taken for the mantle radioactivity and we have varied the initial amount of radioactive heating from chondritic value to four times the chondritic value a significant delay in the cooling process of at least 1 2 gy is found for a surface rayleigh number of between 5 10 6 to 5 10 7 the mantle temperature can be heated up by 300 400 c for initial radiogenic heating value characteristic of the archean we find the strongest deviations from the constant conductivity case for a silicate model by hofmeister science 283 1699 1706 and intermediate values for an enhanced radiative conductivity model comparable to the model of shankland et al j geophys res 84 b4 1603 1610 such high mantle temperatures maintained for a long time by variable thermal conductivity would have important consequences on the thermal and petrological evolution of the mantle

the nature of the l chondrite parent body s disruption as deduced from high pressure phases in the sixiangkou l6 chondrite the disruption of the l chondrite parent body lcpb at similar to 470ma is currently the best documented catastrophic celestial impact event based on the large number of l chondritic materials associated with this event uranium lead u pb dating of apatite and its high pressure decomposition product tuite in the sixiangkou l6 chondrite provides a temporal link to this event the u pb system of phosphates adjacent to shock melt veins was altered to varying degrees and the discordance of the u pb system correlates closely with the extent of apatite decomposition this suggests that the u pb system of apatite could be substantially disturbed by high temperature pulse during shock compression from natural impacts at least on the scale of mineral grains although many l chondrites can be temporally related to the catastrophic lcpb impact event the shock conditions experienced by each individual meteorite vary this could be due to the different geologic settings of these meteorites on their parent body the shock pressure and duration derived from most meteorites may only reflect local shock features rather than the impact conditions although they could provide lower limits to the impact conditions the sixiangkou shock duration similar to 4s estimated from high pressure transformation kinetics provides a lower limit to the high pressure pulse of the lcpb disruption impact combined with available literature data of l chondrites associated with this impact event our results suggest that the lcpb suffered a catastrophic collision with a large projectile with a diameter of at least 18 22km at a low impact velocity 5 6kms 1 this is consistent with astronomical estimates based on the dynamical evolution of l chondritic asteroids

high pressure phases in shock induced melt of the unique highly shocked ll6 chondrite northwest africa 757 northwest africa 757 is unique in the ll chondrite group because of its abundant shock induced melt and high pressure minerals olivine fragments entrained in the melt transform partially and completely into ringwoodite plagioclase and ca phosphate transform to maskelynite lingunite and tuite two distinct shock melt crystallization assemblages were studied by fib tem analysis the first melt assemblage which includes majoritic garnet ringwoodite plus magnetite magnesiowustite crystallized at pressures of 20 25 gpa the other melt assemblage which consists of clinopyroxene and wadsleyite solidified at 15 gpa suggesting a second veining event under lower pressure conditions these shock features are similar to those in s6 l chondrites and indicate that nwa 757 experienced an intense impact event comparable to the impact event that disrupted the l chondrite parent body at 470 ma

host rock solid state transformation in a shock induced melt vein of tenham l6 chondrite abstract the host rock fragments entrained in a 580 m wide melt vein of the tenham l6 chondrite were investigated using field emission scanning electron microscopy fesem and transmission electron microscopy tem to better understand the solid state transformation mechanisms and the shock conditions the melt vein consists of a matrix of silicate plus metal sulfide that crystallized from immiscible melts and sub rounded host rock fragments that have been entrained in the melt and transformed to polycrystalline high pressure silicates by solid state transformation mechanisms these high pressure phases include ringwoodite low ca majorite clinoenstatite hollandite structured plagioclase and ca rich majorite the ca rich majorite occurs as a symplectitic intergrowth with a ca poor amorphous silicate phase in a 200 m diameter chondrule in the vein this intergrowth seems to be the result of a disproportionate breakdown of a ca rich clinopyroxene precursor into ca rich majorite and femg sio 3 perovskite which subsequently vitrified upon pressure release the tem observations suggest that most solid state transformations in the tenham are reconstructive the transformation of olivine to polycrystalline ringwoodite appears to involve incoherent intracrystalline nucleation and interface controlled growth lamellae in partially transformed olivine are not continuous coherent lamellae but rather lamellae of polycrystalline ringwoodite which is inconsistent with a coherent lamellar transformation mechanism growth rate calculations based on published kinetic data suggest that the time required to grow 1 m ringwoodite crystal is 100 ms at 1600 k suggesting that the minimum shock pulse of approximately 100 ms

back transformation of high pressure phases in a shock melt vein of an h chondrite during atmospheric passage implications for the survival of high pressure phases after decompression abstract we investigated the h6 chondrite yamato 75267 in which a fusion crust cuts a shock melt vein the shock vein region more than 280 m from the fusion crust contains high pressure phases such as ringwoodite majorite pyrope ss garnet and naalsi 3 o 8 hollandite however the shock vein close to the fusion crust entirely consists of the low pressure polymorphs olivine low ca pyroxene and plagioclase glass the boundary between low and high pressure phase regions is parallel to the fusion crust during the atmospheric passage the peripheral part of the chondrite was melted to form the fusion crust our microscopic laser micro raman electron microprobe investigations and calculations indicate an area up to 300 m from the fusion crust experienced a temperature of 1400 c after 3 s during the melting of the peripheral part the high pressure phases would at this conditions quickly transform back to their low pressure polymorphs the result obtained here indicates that post shock temperatures in the interior part of the veins were much lower than 1400 c thus leading to the survival of high pressure phases in heavily shocked chondrites

landslides induced by the 2008 wenchuan earthquake sichuan china the 2008 wenchuan earthquake with a magnitude of mw 7 9 induced numerous slope movements on the hanging walls of fault surface ruptures and on steep inner valleys along the minjiang river landslide moving directions showed preferred orientations normal to the fault ruptures indicating the effect of the directivity of the seismic wave the most common landslides were of carbonate rocks which are easily dissolved and decrease the contact surfaces the largest non volcanic landslide in history was induced in bedded dolomite by the earthquake and was preceded by gravitational deformation with ridge top depressions valley fill materials were mobilized at 36 locations probably by pore water pressure build up

shock conditions recorded in nwa 8159 martian augite basalt with implications for the impact cratering history on mars nwa 8159 is an augite rich martian basalt formed by cooling of a relatively evolved ca rich ti poor and lree depleted lava under relatively oxidizing conditions during the early amazonian in addition to its distinct igneous petrogenesis and high fo 2 nwa 8159 is also set apart from most martian shergottites with respect to the low degree of shock metamorphism required to preserve crystalline igneous plagioclase an 50 65 in this study mineral transformations within and adjacent to shock veins in nwa 8159 were investigated using scanning electron microscopy raman spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy to better constrain the unusal shock history of this meteorite the transformation of olivine to ahrensite fe ringwoodite along shock vein margins and tissintite and coesiteformed from igneous mineral labradorite and silica grains entrained as clasts within shock veins has been documented in this study we report on a previously unidentified mineral assemblage of ca na majoritic garnet sodic clinopyroxene and stishovite crystallized from shock melt this mineral assemblage indicates a crystallization pressure of approximately 16 gpa which is within the range of previous shock pressure estimates for this meteorite 15 23 gpa the presence of a majoritic garnet bearing assemblage throughout veins up to 0 6 mm wide indicates that the sample remained at high pressure throughout the melt vein quench based on thermal models the sample must have remained at high pressure for 100 ms this shock duration is an order of magnitude longer than those experienced by more highly shocked shergottites such as tissint or zagami 30 gpa 10 20 ms and would seem to imply a relatively large impact event recent numerical models demonstrate that a range of shock pressures and durations are realized by rocks within the ejected spall zone of a hypervelocity impact the shock conditions experienced by nwa 8159 therefore do not require an impact event distinct from other shergottites rather our findings suggest that this meteorite originated from near the martian surface at the edge of the impact site the shock history of nwa 8159 provides a picture of mars consistent with that derived from remote observation that of a random cratering process that samples a geologically long lived and complex planet

experimental generation of shock induced pseudotachylites along lithological interfaces to understand the mechanism of formation of shock induced pseudotachylites and particularly the role that rock heterogeneities and interfaces play in their formation shock recovery experiments were carried out on samples consisting of two distinct lithologies dunite and quartzite it was possible to generate melt veins of 1 6 m width along lithological interfaces at moderate shock pressures 6 to 34 gpa the magnitudes of displacement along the interface strain rate and the kinetic heat production indicate that friction is an important heat source that largely contributes to the energy budget of the melt veins the experimentally produced veins resemble natural s type pseudotachylites the geometry of the veins depends on the orientation of the interface with respect to the shock front and includes strong variations in thickness formation of melt pockets and injection veins sudden changes in vein orientation and sharp vein margins two types of melt were observed vesicle free and vesicular melts dense vesicle free melt rock is likely to represent high pressure melts vesicular melts were also generated during shock compression but they remained in a molten state during pressure release and continued shearing intermingling of comminuted olivine and melt suggests that ultracataclasis of olivine induced by a dynamic tensile failure is a precursor stage to frictional melting shock wave interferences at the lithological interface provide the necessary stress conditions to start dynamic failure of olivine the composition of the frictional melts ranges from olivine normative to enstatite normative and is thus largely determined by olivine melting the validity of the sequence of friction melting susceptibilities of rock forming minerals inferred from tectonically produced pseudotachylites is confirmed and can now be applied to ultra high strain rates during shock compression

gis based landslide susceptibility mapping for the 2005 kashmir earthquake region abstract the m w 7 6 october 8 2005 kashmir earthquake triggered several thousand landslides throughout the himalaya of northern pakistan and india these were concentrated in six different geomorphic geologic anthropogenic settings a spatial database which included 2252 landslides was developed and analyzed using aster satellite imagery and geographical information system gis technology a multi criterion evaluation was applied to determine the significance of event controlling parameters in triggering the landslides the parameters included lithology faults slope gradient slope aspect elevation land cover rivers and roads the results showed four classes of landslide susceptibility furthermore they indicated that lithology had the strongest influence on landsliding particularly when the rock is highly fractured such as in shale slate clastic sediments and limestone and dolomite moreover the proximity of the landslides to faults rivers and roads was also an important factor in helping to initiate failures in addition landslides occurred particularly in moderate elevations on south facing slopes shrub land grassland and also agricultural land were highly susceptible to failures while forested slopes had few landslides one third of the study area was highly or very highly susceptible to future landsliding and requires immediate mitigation action the rest of the region had a low or moderate susceptibility to landsliding and remains relatively stable this study supports the view that 1 earthquake triggered landslides are concentrated in specific zones associated with event controlling parameters and 2 in the western himalaya deforestation and road construction contributed significantly to landsliding during and shortly after earthquakes

a large shock vein in l chondrite roosevelt county 106 evidence for a long duration shock pulse on the l chondrite parent body a large shock induced melt vein in l6 ordinary chondrite roosevelt county 106 contains abundant high pressure minerals including olivine enstatite and plagioclase fragments that have been transformed to polycrystalline ringwoodite majorite lingunite and jadeite the host chondrite at the melt vein margins contains olivines that are partially transformed to ringwoodite the quenched silicate melt in the shock veins consists of majoritic garnets up to 25 m in size magnetite maghemite and phyllosilicates the magnetite maghemite and phyllosilicates are the terrestrial alteration products of magnesiowustite and quenched glass this assemblage indicates crystallization of the silicate melt at approximately 20 25 gpa and 2000 c coarse majorite garnets in the centers of shock veins grade into increasingly finer grained dendritic garnets toward the vein margins indicating increasing quench rates toward the margins as a result of thermal conduction to the surrounding chondrite host nanocrystalline boundary zones that contain wadsleyite ringwoodite majorite and magnesiowustite occur along shock vein margins these zones represent rapid quench of a boundary melt that contains less metal sulfide than the bulk shock vein one dimensional finite element heat flow calculations were performed to estimate a quench time of 750 1900 ms for a 1 6 mm thick shock vein because the vein crystallized as a single high pressure assemblage the shock pulse duration was at least as long as the quench time and therefore the sample remained at 20 25 gpa for at least 750 ms this relatively long shock pulse combined with a modest shock pressure implies that this sample came from deep in the l chondrite parent body during a collision with a large impacting body such as the impact event that disrupted the l chondrite parent body 470 myr ago

coseismic surface ruptures and crustal deformations of the 2008 wenchuan earthquake mw7 9 china 1 the irregularly distributed surface fault ruptures of the wenchuan earthquake spanned over 200 km along the longmen shan lms fault zone through field investigations we found over 10 coseismic surface ruptures with maximum vertical displacements of approximately 6 m on the yingxiu beichuan fault and 2 m on the guanxian anxian fault however the entire fault rupture movement was still not clearly understood since high topographic areas were inaccessible thus we used interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar satellite observations to capture whole coseismic surface ruptures and crustal deformations across the lms faults we created a novel bi fault slip model to invert fault slips using insar information which yielded that thrust fault slips were dominant at yingxiu houshenggou and bajiaomiao in the near epicenter segment while the dextral fault slips were dominant at pingtong and nanba along the northeast segment the combination of field investigations and simulations suggested that the two coseismic fault zones ruptured with an irregular surface distribution accompanied by crustal deformations

methods for predicting peak discharge of floods caused by failure of natural and constructed earthen dams floods from failures of natural and constructed dams constitute a widespread hazard to people and property expeditious means of assessing flood hazards are necessary particularly in the case of natural dams which may form suddenly and unexpectedly we revise statistical relations derived from data for past constructed and natural dam failures between peak discharge qp and water volume released v0 or drop in lake level d but assert that such relations even when cast into a dimensionless form are of limited utility because they fail to portray the effect of breach formation rate we then analyze a simple physically based model of dam breach formation to show that the hydrograph at the breach depends primarily on a dimensionless parameter kv0 gl 2d7 2 where k is the mean erosion rate of the breach and g is acceleration due to gravity the functional relationship between qp and takes asymptotically distinct forms depending on whether 1 relatively slow breach formation or small lake volume or 1 relatively fast breach formation or large lake volume theoretical predictions agree well with data from dam failures for which k and thus can be estimated the theory thus provides a rapid means of predicting the plausible range of values of peak discharge at the breach in an earthen dam as long as the impounded water volume and the water depth at the dam face can be estimated