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Full-Text Articles in Earth Sciences

Serial Ruptures Of The San Andreas Fault, Carrizo Plain, California, Revealed By Three-Dimensional Excavations, Jing Liu-Zeng, Yann Klinger, Kerry Sieh, Charles Rubin, Gordon Seitz Feb 2006

Serial Ruptures Of The San Andreas Fault, Carrizo Plain, California, Revealed By Three-Dimensional Excavations, Jing Liu-Zeng, Yann Klinger, Kerry Sieh, Charles Rubin, Gordon Seitz

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

It is poorly known if fault slip repeats regularly through many earthquake cycles. Well‐documented measurements of successive slips rarely span more than three earthquake cycles. In this paper, we present evidence of six sequential offsets across the San Andreas fault at a site in the Carrizo Plain, using stream channels as piercing lines. We opened a latticework of trenches across the offset channels on both sides of the fault to expose their subsurface stratigraphy. We can correlate the channels across the fault on the basis of their elevations, shapes, stratigraphy, and ages. The three‐dimensional excavations allow us to locate accurately …


Geochronology And Tectonic Significance Of Middle Proterozoic Granitic Orthogneiss, North Qaidam Hp/Uhp Terrane, Western China, Chris G. Mattinson, Joseph L. Wooden, Juhn G. Liou, D. K. Bird, C. L. Wu Jan 2006

Geochronology And Tectonic Significance Of Middle Proterozoic Granitic Orthogneiss, North Qaidam Hp/Uhp Terrane, Western China, Chris G. Mattinson, Joseph L. Wooden, Juhn G. Liou, D. K. Bird, C. L. Wu

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Amphibolite-facies para- and orthogneisses near Dulan, in the southeast part of the North Qaidam terrane, enclose minor ultra-high pressure (UHP) eclogite and peridotite. Field relations and coesite inclusions in zircons from paragneiss suggest that felsic, mafic, and ultramafic rocks all experienced UHP metamorphism and a common amphibolite-facies retrogression. Ion microprobe U–Pb and REE analyses of zircons from two granitic orthogneisses indicate magmatic crystallization at 927 ± Ma and 921 ± 7 Ma. Zircon rims in one of these samples yield younger ages (397–618 Ma) compatible with partial zircon recrystallization during in-situ Ordovician-Silurian eclogite-facies metamorphism previously determined from eclogite and paragneiss …


Pyritized Tube Feet In A Protasterid Ophiuroid From The Upper Ordovician Of Kentucky, U.S.A., Alexander Glass Jan 2006

Pyritized Tube Feet In A Protasterid Ophiuroid From The Upper Ordovician Of Kentucky, U.S.A., Alexander Glass

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

A single specimen of the protasterid ophiuroid Protasterina flexuosa from the Kope Formation (Cincinnatian, Upper Ordovician) of Kentucky exhibits three−dimensionally pyritized tube feet. This represents the first report of soft−tissue preservation in an echinoderm from the type−Cincinnatian series. The tube feet are solid and lack all internal structure. They consist of aggregated masses of small euhedral to subhedral pyrite crystals suggesting that pyritization, although decay−induced and mediated, did not necessarily replicate soft−tissues but might instead have formed inside the void−spaces left behind during the decay process. The discovery of pyritized soft−tissue as delicate as ophiuroid tube feet suggests that similar …


Historical Glacier And Climate Fluctuations At Mount Hood, Oregon, Karl Lillquist, Karen Walker Jan 2006

Historical Glacier And Climate Fluctuations At Mount Hood, Oregon, Karl Lillquist, Karen Walker

Geography Faculty Scholarship

Terminus fluctuations of five glaciers and the correspondence of these fluctuations to temperature and precipitation patterns were assessed at Oregon's Mount Hood over the period 1901–2001. Historical photographs, descriptions, and climate data, combined with contemporary GPS measurements and GIS analysis, revealed that each glacier experienced overall retreat, ranging from −62 m at the Newton Clark Glacier to −1102 m at the Ladd Glacier. Within this overall trend, Mount Hood's glaciers experienced two periods each of retreat and advance. Glaciers retreated between 1901 and 1946 in response to rising temperatures and declining precipitation. A mid-century cool, wet period led to glacier …


Fluvial Response To Intra-Canyon Lava Flows, Owyhee River, Southeastern Oregon, Cooper Cooke Brossy Jan 2006

Fluvial Response To Intra-Canyon Lava Flows, Owyhee River, Southeastern Oregon, Cooper Cooke Brossy

All Master's Theses

At least six lava flows have entered the Owyhee River Canyon north of Rome, Oregon, since the Pliocene and directly impacted the Owyhee River. The effects on the river of the two youngest lava flows, the West Crater (60–80 ka) and Saddle Butte (> 60–90 ka), are readily apparent. These two lava flows entered a paleo-Owyhee Canyon several kilometers wide via three different tributary drainages. The flows dammed the Owyhee River, created lakes, and effectively confined the river to the opposite side of the valley from the flows’ entrance. Lava from these flows filled a paleo-Owyhee Canyon to depths of …


Deciphering The Signature Of Magma Mixing: Examples From The Castle Creek Eruptive Period, Mount St. Helens, Washington, Seth Taylor Mattos Jan 2006

Deciphering The Signature Of Magma Mixing: Examples From The Castle Creek Eruptive Period, Mount St. Helens, Washington, Seth Taylor Mattos

All Master's Theses

Mount St. Helens (MSH) volcano in southwestern Washington has intermittently erupted dacitic products for the last 40,000 years. On limited occasions, the volcano has produced andesite lava flows, and during one short-lived period, basaltic lava flows. This time interval has been termed the Castle Creek eruptive period and occurred between approximately 2500 and 1700 years B.P. The Castle Creek period erupted dacite, andesite and basalt within this short span of time. Andesite and dacite eruptions dominate the first approximately 700 years of the period, and all basaltic units were erupted in approximately the last 100 years of the period. This …