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Post by joshuamcduffie on Mar 25, 2020 9:00:40 GMT -5
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Post by hummingbirdstones2 on Mar 25, 2020 9:59:09 GMT -5
Atlantis...!
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Post by fernwood on Mar 25, 2020 10:46:40 GMT -5
Very interesting. I agree, Atlantis.
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Post by greig on Mar 25, 2020 13:36:36 GMT -5
NYT clickbait. Nowhere in the article do they provide any statements or evidence regarding a lost continent, only that Baffin Island mineralization is different than mineralization much further south ... and then they include something completely unrelated about mysterious holes in the ocean off CA.
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Post by parfive on Mar 25, 2020 15:15:54 GMT -5
Well, the NY part’s correct, but the denominator was Murdoch, not Sulzberger. : )
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Post by parfive on Mar 25, 2020 15:33:03 GMT -5
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gemfeller
Cave Dweller
Member since June 2011
Posts: 4,059
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Post by gemfeller on Mar 25, 2020 16:08:42 GMT -5
It's the original source and the basis of the Fox News article. Anyone who's studied a little about plate tectonics knows what cratons are and how important such newly discovered fragments are in unraveling the geologic history of the continents. The article's anything but clickbait.
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Post by parfive on Mar 25, 2020 16:10:42 GMT -5
. . . and the subsequently linked abstract is a fun read on a slow news day . . . We studied the petrography, mineralogy, thermobarometry and whole-rock chemistry of 120 peridotite and pyroxenite xenoliths collected from the 156 - 138 Ma Chidliak kimberlite province (Southern Baffin Island). Xenoliths from pipes CH-1, -6, -7 and -44 are divided into two garnet-bearing series, dunites-harzburgites-lherzolites and wehrlites – olivine pyroxenites. Both series show widely varying textures, from coarse to sheared, and textures of late formation of garnet and clinopyroxene. Some samples from the lherzolite series may contain spinel, while wehrlites may contain ilmenite. In CH-6, rare coarse samples of the lherzolite and wehrlite series were derived from P = 2.8-5.6 GPa, while predominant sheared and coarse samples of the lherzolite series coexist at P = 5.6-7.5 GPa. Kimberlites CH-1, -7, -44 sample mainly the deeper mantle, at P = 5.0-7.5 GPa, represented by coarse and sheared lherzolite and wehrlite series. The bulk of the pressure-temperature arrays defines a thermal state compatible with 35-39 mW/m2 surface heat flow, but a significant thermal disequilibrium was evident in the large isobaric thermal scatter, especially at depth, and in the low thermal gradients uncharacteristic of conduction. The whole rock Si and Mg contents of the Chidliak xenoliths and their mineral chemistry reflects initial high levels of melt depletion typical of cratonic mantle and subsequent refertilization in Ca and Al. Unlike the more orthopyroxene-rich mantle of many other cratons, the Chidliak mantle is rich (∼83 vol.%) in forsteritic olivine. We assign this to silicate-carbonate metasomatism, which triggered wehrlitization of the mantle. The Chidliak mantle resembles the Greenlandic part of the North Atlantic Craton suggesting the former contiguous nature of their lithosphere before subsequent rifting into separate continental fragments. Another, more recent type of mantle metasomatism, which affected the Chidliak mantle, is characterized by elevated Ti in pyroxenes and garnet typical of all rock types from CH-1, -7 and -44. These metasomatic samples are largely absent from the CH-6 xenolith suite. The Ti imprint is most intense in xenoliths derived from depths equivalent to 5.5 to 6.5 GPa where it is associated with higher strain, the presence of sheared samples of the lherzolite series and higher temperatures varying isobarically by up to 200 °C. The horizontal scale of the thermal-metasomatic imprint is more ambiguous and could be as regional as 10 s of kilometers or as local as < 1 km. The time-scale of this metasomatism relates to a conductive length-scale and could be as short as < 1 Myr, shortly predating kimberlite formation. A complex protracted metasomatic history of the North Atlantic Craton reconstructed from Chidliak xenoliths matches emplacement patterns of deep CO2-rich and Ti-rich magmatism around the Labrador Sea prior to the craton rifting. The metasomatism may have played a pivotal role in thinning the North Atlantic Craton lithosphere adjacent to the Labrador Sea from ∼240 km in the Jurassic to ∼65 km in the Paleogene.
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Post by grumpybill on Mar 29, 2020 16:23:43 GMT -5
Yeah, it's a "fun read" as long as you have a dictionary open in another tab.
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