Lower Continental Crusts Involved in the Alpine Orogeny:New Insight from the Santa Lucia Nappe Metasediments(Corsica,France)

In the Alpine Corsica(France),the Santa Lucia Nappe represents a peculiar unit preserving the unique relicts of Paleozoic lower to medium continental crust.It consists of composite basement affected by Permian granulite facies metamorphic conditions unconformably covered by a Late Cretaceous clastic sequence(Tomboni Conglomerate and Tralonca Flysch)affected by polyphase deformation and low-grade-metamorphism.In this work,we present a new reconstruction of the deformation events registered by the Tralonca Flysch during the Alpine orogeny.The D1 phase was testified by rare isoclinal folds.The D2 phase produced a continuous foliation and a map-scale sheath-fold with a top-to-W sense of shear.The D3 phase produced E-verging non-cylindrical folds and S3 crenulation cleavage that is not associated to metamorphic blastesis.We present the first temperature-pressure-deformation(P-T-d)path for the Tralonca Flysch,demonstrating that the Santa Lucia Nappe underwent accretion and then first stage exhumation in the Alpine wedge during the D1 phase with pressure and temperature peaks both occurred under blueschist metamorphic conditions.The D2 phase occurred at lower pressure-temperature conditions during a second stage exhumation.This pressure-temperaturedeformation path is comparable with those of the Lower Units(i.e.,the subducted continental units of Alpine Corsica)suggesting a common geodynamic history.

The western Durkan Complex(Makran Accretionary Prism,SE Iran):A Late Cretaceous tectonically disrupted seamounts chain and its role in controlling deformation style

The Durkan Complex is a key tectonic element of the Makran accretionary prism(SE Iran)and it has been interpreted as representing a continental margin succession.We present here a multidisciplinary study of the western Durkan Complex,which is based on new geological,stratigraphic,biostratigraphic data,as well as geochemical data of the volcanic and meta-volcanic rocks forming this complex.Our data show that this complex consists of distinct tectonic slices showing both non-metamorphic and very low-grade metamorphic deformed successions.Stratigraphic and biostratigraphic data allow us to recognize three types of successions.Type-Ⅰis composed by a Coniacian-early Campanian pelagic succession with intercalation of pillow lavas and minor volcaniclastic rocks.Type-Ⅱsuccession includes a volcanic sequence passing to a volcano-sedimentary sequence with Cenomanian pelagic limestones,followed by a hemipelagic sequence.This succession is characterized by abundant mass-transport deposits.Type-Ⅲsuccession includes volcanic and volcano-sedimentary sequences,which are stratigraphically covered by a Cenomanian platform succession.The latter is locally followed by a hemipelagic sequence.The volcanic rocks in the different successions show alkaline geochemical affinity,suggesting an origin from an oceanic within-plate setting.Our new results indicate that the western Durkan Complex represents fragments of seamounts tectonically incorporated in the Makran accretionary wedge during the latest Late Cretaceous-Paleocene.We propose that incorporation of seamounts in the frontal prism caused a shortening of the whole convergent margin and possibly contributed to controlling the deformation style in the Makran Accretionary Wedge during Late Cretaceous-Paleocene times.

Obsidians from Latium Settlements： Preliminary Study on Provenance and Supplying Dynamics Indexes

There are essentially six sources for obsidians in the Mediterranean Basin： Mount Arci in Sardinia, the islands of Lipari and Pantelleria in Sicily and Palmarola in Latium, as well as the islands of Melos and Gyali in the south-eastern part of Greece. Identification and quantification of principal and trace elements which compose this volcanic glass allow source tracking. The present study proposes a investigation methodology, which was developed on a sample set composed by archaeological obsidian findings from Neolithic sites in Latium; three different analytical techniques are compared： SEM-EDXS, ED-XRF and LA-ICP-MS, in order to gather a wide data set to be compared with data in literature and to be processed by Principal Component Analysis （PCA） for assigning a provenance to each find.

Cretaceous tectonic evolution of the Neo-Tethys in Central Iran:Evidence from petrology and age of the Nain-Ashin ophiolitic basalts

The Nain and Ashin ophiolites consist of Mesozoic melange units that were emplaced in the Late Cretaceous onto the continental basement of the Central-East Iran microcontinent(CEIM).They largely consist of serpentinized peridotites slices;nonetheless,minor tectonic slices of sheeted dykes and pillow lavas-locally stratigraphically associated with radiolarian cherts-can be found in these ophiolitic melanges.Based on their whole rock geochemistry and mineral chemistry,these rocks can be divided into two geochemical groups.The sheeted dykes and most of the pillow lavas show island arc tholeiitic(IAT)affinity,whereas a few pillow lavas from the Nain ophiolites show calc-alkaline(CA)affinity.Petrogenetic modeling based on trace elements composition indicates that both IAT and CA rocks derived from partial melting of depleted mantle sources that underwent enrichment in subduction-derived components prior to melting.Petrogenetic modeling shows that these components were represented by pure aqueous fluids,or sediment melts,or a combination of both,suggesting that the studied rocks were formed in an arc-forearc tectonic setting.Our new biostratigraphic data indicate this arc-forearc setting was active in the Early Cretaceous.Previous tectonic interpretations suggested that the Nain ophiolites formed,in a Late Cretaceous backarc basin located in the south of the CEIM(the so-called Nain-Baft basin).However,recent studies showed that the CEIM underwent a counter-clockwise rotation in the Cenozoic,which displaced the Nain and Ashin ophiolites in their present day position from an original northeastward location.This evidence combined with our new data and a comparison of the chemical features of volcanic rocks from different ophiolites around the CEIM allow us to suggest that the Nain-Ashin volcanic rocks and dykes were formed in a volcanic arc that developed on the northern margin of the CEIM during the Early Cretaceous in association with the subduction,below the CEIM,of a Neo-Tethys oceanic branch that was existing between the CEIM and the southern margin of Eurasia.As a major conclusion of this paper,a new geodynamic model for the Cretaceous evolution of the CEIM and surrounding Neo-Tethyan oceanic basins is proposed.

Micro- and Mesoporous Mineral Phases

In Materials Science, investigations aiming to prepare new types of molecular sieves （porous materials） that are distinct from zeolites in the kind of polyhedra building up their structure have recently opened a productive field of research inspired by the crystal structures of minerals. Three groups （micro-, meso- and macroporous structures） are discriminated based upon the effective width of the pores （channels）. According to the recommendations of the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry （IUPAC） （McCusker et al., 2003）, pores are micro, meso and macro if the effective width of their channels is less than 2 nm, in the 2-50 nm range and larger than 50 nm, respectively. Ideally, pores repeat in a regular manner, forming long-range ordered structures. Of particular interest are novel molecular sieves characterized by a mixed octahedraltetrahedral framework （heteropolyhedral framework）, instead of a purely tetrahedral framework as in zeolites （Figure 1）.

Topography,structural and exhumation history of the Admiralty Mountains region,northern Victoria Land,Antarctica

The Admiralty Mountains region forms the northern termination of the northern Victoria Land,Antarctica.Few quantitative data are available to reconstruct the Cenozoic morpho-tectonic evolution of this sector of the Antarctic plate,where the Admiralty Mountains region forms the northern termination of the western shoulder of the Mesozoic-Cenozoic West Antarctica Rift System.In this study we combine new low-temperature thermochronological data(apatite fission-track and(U-Th-Sm)/He analyses)with structural and topography analysis.The regional pattern of the fission-track ages shows a general tendency to older ages(80-60 Ma)associated with shortened mean track-lengths in the interior,and younger fission-track ages clustering at 38-26 Ma with long mean track-lengths in the coastal region.Differently from other regions of Victoria Land,the younger ages are found as far as 50-70 km inland.Single grain apatite(U-Th-Sm)/He ages cluster at 50-30 Ma with younger ages in the coastal domain.Topography analysis reveals that the Admiralty Mountains has high local relief,with an area close to the coast,180 km long and 70 km large,having the highest local relief of>2500 m.This coincides with the location of the youngest fission-track ages.The shape of the area with highest local relief matches the shape of a recently detected low velocity zone beneath the northern TAM,indicating that high topography of the Admiralty Mountains region is likely sustained by a mantle thermal anomaly.We used the obtained constraints on the amount of removed crustal section to reconstruct back-eroded profiles and calculate the erosional load in order to test flexural uplift models.We found that our back-eroded profiles are better reproduced by a constant elastic thickness of intermediate values(Te=20-30 km).This suggests that,beneath the Admiralty Mountains,the elastic properties of the lithosphere are different with respect to other TAM sectors,likely due to a stationary Cenozoic upper mantle thermal anomaly in the region.

A New Physical Interpretation of Archimedes’ Principle

The interpretation of the equilibrium of a solid body floating on the surface of a liquid body is well known as the “Archimedes’ Principle”. Presently, the equilibrium of the solid body is interpreted as the result of the concurrence of two mechanical actions which are equivalent and opposite: the “weight” of the body, directed downwards, and the “Archimedes’ force” having a magnitude equivalent to the weight of the volume of liquid displaced by the volume of the body immersed in the liquid, directed upwards. We show arguments proving that this interpretation is not a correct physical interpretation. The same arguments show that a new different interpretation is a correct one. The new interpretation is based on the hypothesis that the “weight” of a body immersed in a body-medium is proportional to the volume of the body immersed in the body-medium and to the difference in density between the matter of the body and the matter of the body-medium. Accordingly, if a body is completely immersed in a body-medium, there is only one mechanical action on the body. This action may be downwards or upwards, or its magnitude may be zero. In this last case, the body is in equilibrium within the body-medium.

Deformation history and processes during accretion of seamounts in subduction zones:The example of the Durkan Complex(Makran,SE Iran)

The Durkan Complex is a tectonic element of the Makran Accretionary Prism(SE Iran)that includes fragments of Late Cretaceous seamounts.In this paper,the results of map-to micro-scale structural studies of the western Durkan Complex are presented with the aim to describe its structural and tectonometamorphic evolution.The Durkan Complex consists of several tectonic units bordered by mainly NNW-striking thrusts.Three main deformation phases(D_(1),D_(2),and D_(3))are distinguished and likely occurred from the Late Cretaceous to the Miocene–Pliocene.D_(1) is characterized by sub-isoclinal to close and W-verging folds associated with an axial plane foliation and shear zone along the fold limbs.This phase records the accretion of fragments of the seamount within the Makran at blueschist facies metamorphic conditions(160–300℃ and 0.6–1.2 GPa).D_(2) is characterized by open to close folds with subhorizontal axial plane that likely developed during the exhumation of previously accreted seamount fragments.An upper Paleocene–Eocene siliciclastic succession unconformably sealed the D_(1) and D_(2) structures and is,in turn,deformed by W-verging thrust faults typical of D_(3).The latter likely testifies for a Miocene–Pliocene tectonic reworking of the accreted seamount fragments with the activation of out of sequence thrusts.Our results shed light on the mechanism of accretion of seamount materials in the accretionary prisms,suggesting that seamount slope successions favour the localization and propagation of the basal décollement.This study further confirms that the physiography of the subducting plates plays a significant role in the tectonic evolution of the subduction complexes.