Minto Large Igneous Province: A 2.00 Ga Mafic Magmatic Event in the Eastern Superior Craton Based on U-Pb Baddeleyite Geochronology and Paleomagnetism

A precise U-Pb baddeleyite age of 1999±2 Ma has been obtained for the NNW trending Lac Shpogan dyke swarm of the James Bay area of the eastern Superior craton.Previously the age of the swarm was only

The Timing of the Palaeoproterozoic Great Oxidation Event using Dykes,Sills and Bolcanics of the Ongeluk Large Igneous Province,Kaapvaal Craton

The Neoarchaean to Palaeoproterozoic Transvaal Supergroup of the Kaapvaal Craton,southern Africa,is one of the best-preserved and most complete stratigraphic records across a critical in juncture in the Earth’s history.

Two types of hyperthermal events in the Mesozoic-Cenozoic:Environmental impacts, biotic effects, and driving mechanisms

A deeper understanding of hyperthermal events in the Earth’s history can provide an important scientific basis for understanding and coping with global warming in the Anthropocene. Two types of hyperthermal events are classified based on the characteristics of the carbon isotope excursion(CIE) of the five representative hyperthermal events in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic. The first type is overall characterized by negative CIEs(NCHE) and represented by the Permian-Triassic boundary event(PTB, ~252 Ma), the early Toarcian oceanic anoxic event(TOAE, ~183 Ma), and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum event(PETM, ~56 Ma). The second type is overall characterized by positive CIEs(PCHE) and represented by the early Aptian oceanic anoxic event(OAE1 a, ~120 Ma) and the latest Cenomanian oceanic anoxic event(OAE2, ~94 Ma).Hyperthermal events of negative CIEs(NCHE), lead to dramatic changes in temperature, sedimentation, and biodiversity. These events caused frequent occurrence of terrestrial wildfires, extreme droughts, acid rain, destruction of ozone layer, metal poisoning(such as mercury), changes in terrestrial water system, and carbonate platform demise, ocean acidification, ocean anoxia in marine settings, and various degree extinction of terrestrial and marine life, especially in shallow marine. In contrast,hyperthermal events of positive CIEs(PCHE), result in rapid warming of seawater and widespread oceanic anoxia, large-scale burial of organic matter and associated black shale deposition, which exerted more significant impacts on deep-water marine life,but little impacts on shallow sea and terrestrial life. While PCHEs were triggered by volcanism associated with LIPs in deep-sea environment, the released heat and nutrient were buffered by seawater due to their eruption in the deep sea, thus exerted more significant impacts on deep-marine biota than on shallow marine and terrestrial biota. This work enriches the study of hyperthermal events in geological history, not only for the understanding of hyperthermal events themselves, large igneous provinces, marine and terrestrial environment changes, mass extinctions, but also for providing a new method to identify the types of hyperthermal events and the inference of their driving mechanism based on the characteristics of carbon isotopic excursions and geological records.

Applications of mercury stable isotopes for tracing volcanism in the geologic record

Mercury(Hg)enrichments in ancient sediments have been used as a proxy of volcanism,especially large igneous province(LIP)eruptions.However,considering the existence of other potential Hg sources besides volcanoes and the diverse factors(e.g.,organic matters,clay minerals,sulfide minerals and Fe oxides)that can affect Hg sequestration,there are considerable uncertainties to simply regard sedimentary Hg anomalies as signatures of volcanic activities.Mercury stable isotopes,a promising tool for tracing the origins and transformations of Hg,have been increasingly used for determining the causes of Hg spikes and understanding the geochemical behavior of Hg in the geologic record.To date,lots of researches have applied Hg concentrations and Hg isotopes to identify LIP volcanisms linking with significant geological events such as mass extinctions,ocean anoxic events and other environmental perturbations that mainly occurred in the Phanerozoic.However,the results in previous studies clearly show that not all Hg enrichments are derived from volcanic inputs,which emphasize the need for more caution in using Hg as a fingerprint of volcanism.With a better understanding of Hg isotopes in the future,there will be important implications for Hg isotopes to reconstruct volcanic activities in the rock records and their impacts on biological evolution.