Volume 466, Nº 2 (2016)

The data on the geological structure and petrography of host rocks of the Vein 2136 quartz deposit located in the eastern part of the Ufalei gneiss–amphibolite complex (the Southern Urals) are discussed. It is established that the deposit resulted from the metasomatic replacement of amphibolite by quartz. The following metasomatic succession was formed during metasomatosis: quartz → quartz–feldspar pegmatoid → biotite schist → amphibolite. The investigation of homogenized vapor–liquid inclusions in quartz and feldspars revealed that the deposit was formed at temperatures of 350–400°C.

In the interval of the Triassic–Jurassic boundary, 80% of the marine species became extinct. Four main hypotheses about the causes of this mass extinction are considered: volcanism, climatic oscillations, sea level variations accompanied by anoxia, and asteroid impact events. The extinction was triggered by an extensive flooding of basalts in the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province. Furthermore, a number of meteoritic craters have been found. Under the effect of cosmic causes, two main sequences of events developed on the Earth: terrestrial ones, leading to intensive volcanism, and cosmic ones (asteroid impacts). Their aftermaths, however, were similar in terms of the chemical compounds and aerosols released. As a consequence, the greenhouse effect, dimming of the atmosphere (impeding photosynthesis), ocean stagnation, and anoxia emerged. Then, biological productivity decreased and food chains were destroyed. Thus, the entire ecosystem was disturbed and a considerable part of the biota became extinct.

Based on synthetic fluid inclusions in quartz grown at 240–490°C and 7–150 MPa in aqueous–oil solutions, the behavior, composition, and phase states of liquid, gaseous, and solid hydrocarbons (HC) were studied. Investigations were performed using common and fluorescent microscopy, microthermometry, local common and high-temperature IR Fourier spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, chromatography, and X-ray and microprobe analysis. The data obtained allowed us to understand the influence of thermobaric conditions and volume proportions of the oil, aqueous, and gaseous phases on the composition, phase state, and behavior of hydrous–hydrocarbon fluids and estimate the forms and probable maximal depths of the origin of oil in the Earth’s interior.

In this article we present geochemical and isotope characteristics of rocks of the Unerikan, Selitkan and Aezop–Yamalin volcano–plutonic zones of the eastern termination of the Mongol–Okhotsk Orogenic Belt. The obtained data demonstrate that the Mesozoic igneous rocks of the Mongol–Okhotsk sector of the Pacific Folded Belt were formed due to the melting of the continental crust in a tectonic setting corresponding to a suprasubduction one.

The first data on biogenic nanosiderite originally discovered in oxidized Fe-quartzites from the Lebedinsk deposit of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly (KMA) are reported. Two generations of siderite with radically different morphology and crystal-chemical and physical properties were identified. The biogenic origin is substantiated for the late generation (nanosized siderite particles). We suggest that the early ores were transformed as a result of the evolution of the atmosphere and biosphere in the area of the KMA in the Phanerozoic. Such significant differences in the properties of biogenic nanosiderite and early rhombohedral siderite may provide evidence for their different origins. The early generation of siderite was most likely formed during an abiogenic process.

The behavior of trace elements under conditions of partial melting of granitoid rocks has been studied. The element’s partition coefficients between minerals and the melt D_i^min/melt depends, in the first place, on the composition of the primary melt. In biotite the HREE D_i are a little below 1, while those of LREE, especially D_i for Ce, are 1–3 orders of magnitude less. This leads to an efficient differentiation of REEs in anatexic melts especially when biotite is the main mineral phase of restite. On the contrary, there are feldspars, the D_i of which cannot provide such a magnitude of differentiation. Unlike garnets and pyroxenes, whose stability in restite permits enrichment of anatexic melts produced in migmatization zones with Nb, Ti, and Cr, the presence of biotite in restite causes depletion of melts with those elements as well as with Rb. Feldspars, under conditions of their fractional crystallization or during differentiation of an anatexic melt, deplete the latter with Sr, Ba, and Rb, but enrich it with Nb, Ti, Cr, Y, Zr, and V.

The results of study of rutile inclusions in pyrope from the Internatsionalnaya kimberlite pipe are presented. Rutile is characterized by unusually high contents of impurities (up to 25 wt %). The presence of Cr₂O₃ (up to 9.75 wt %) and Nb₂O₅ (up to 15.57 wt %) are most typical. Rutile inclusions often occur in assemblage with Ti-rich oxides: picroilmenite and crichtonite group minerals. The Cr-pyropes with inclusions of rutile, picroilmenite, and crichtonite group minerals were formed in the lithospheric mantle beneath the Mirnyi field during their joint crystallization from melts enriched in Fe, Ti, and other incompatible elements as a result of metasomatic enrichment of the depleted lithospheric mantle.

Integrated data are presented on structure–morphology features, as well as on the material and phase composition, of a fluid-produced carbonaceous substance (CS) formed under known thermodynamic conditions of the experiment (C–O–H system, 500–800°C, and 500–1000 atm). Solid products of the synthesis were examined by means of X-ray phase and thermal analyses, scanning electron microscopy combined with microprobe analysis, transmission electron microscopy, high-resolution Raman spectroscopy, IR spectroscopy, and CHN-analysis. The characteristics of the experimental CS may be applicable in genetic modeling of natural ore-bearing fluidal carbonaceous systems.

The results of study of crichtonite group minerals in pyropes from the Internatsionalnaya kimberlite pipe are reported. Most of the studied samples are characterized by high concentrations of Sr, Ca, Na, and LREEs in comparison with minerals of the LIMA series from kimberlites of South Africa, whereas the average concentrations of Ba and K are significantly lower. Crichtonite group minerals in pyropes are characterized by predomination of Na over K in most samples and by a high concentration of Al₂O₃ (up to 4.5 wt %). Findings of inclusions of crichtonite group minerals with high concentrations of incompatible elements provide evidence for the metasomatic origin of host chromium-rich pyropes.

The results of the space monitoring of natural fires during the period 2010–2014 to estimate the areas destroyed by fire, volumes of the emissions of greenhouse gases, and fine particulate aerosols over the entire territory of Russia and its individual regions are presented. The methods of research, the regularities of the seasonal recurrence of fires distinguished in different regions, as well as the peculiarities of emissions of small gas components and aerosols in different months are described.

A typical feature of the large scale interaction of seismic active tectonic provinces of Southern California, which is expressed in a relatively fast jump change in the stress state of the crust over 0.5 month, is revealed on the basis of a geomechanical model and the results of instrumental observations for displacements of the crust. This provides us with new possibilities for the short-term prediction of significant seismic events for a period of a week to a month.

We consider the appearance of scattered PP-waves, SS-waves, scattered converted PS-waves, and SP-waves reflected from the reservoirs in the Arctic shelf zone and wave responses from them in the water column when the source and receiver are located near the water surface. We obtained a numerical solution of the direct problems of seismic prospecting in the shelf zone with a reservoir and without it. The solution was obtained using the grid-characteristic method, which makes possible to model the wave processes in detail.

The suggested model of plastic garbage degradation allows us to obtain an estimate of the stationary density of their distribution over the surface of the World Ocean with account for the temperature dependence on the degradation rate. The model also allows us to estimate the characteristic time periods of degradation of plastic garbage and the dynamics of the mean density variation as the mean rate of plastic garbage entry into the ocean varies