The initial isotopic compositions of Nd and Sr in basalts from the Central Siberian Plateau and other major continental flood basalts are reported. The continental flood basalts appear to be the product of partial melting of mantle sources that consist of relatively primitive undifferentiated material and are clearly distinct from midocean ridge basalts, which sample mantle reservoirs that have...

I prepared compilations of geochemical data from the central part of the Mexican Volcanic Belt (C-MVB), the Central American Volcanic Arc (CAVA) from Guatemala to northwestern Costa Rica, the continental arc of the Andes in South America, other mostly island arcs, extensional and continental break-up regions, and continental rifts. Using quantitative statistical methods, the origin of the C-MVB...

■ Abstract The Cordilleran orogen of western North America is a segment of the Circum-Pacific orogenic belt where subduction of oceanic lithosphere has been underway along a great circle of the globe since breakup of the supercontinent Pangea began in Triassic time. Early stages of Cordilleran evolution involved Neoproterozoic rifting of the supercontinent Rodinia to trigger miogeoclinal sedime...

Numerical time integrations of a general circulation model of the atmosphere are performed with both modern and ice age boundary conditions. It is shown that the climate of continental portions of the tropics in the ice age simulation is much drier than that of the modern climate simulation. According to comparisons of results from the two experiments, tropical continental aridity of the ice ag...

Variations in continental volcanic arc emissions have the potential to control atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and climate change on multimillion-year time scales. Here we present a compilation of ~120,000 detrital zircon uranium-lead (U-Pb) ages from global sedimentary deposits as a proxy to track the spatial distribution of continental magmatic arc systems from the Cryogenian period t...

Melting of the mantle during continental breakup leads to magmatic intrusion and volcanism, yet our understanding of the location and dominant mechanisms of melt generation in rifting environments is impeded by a paucity of direct observations of mantle melting. It is unclear when during the rifting process the segmented nature of magma supply typical of seafloor spreading initiates. Here, we u...

Slab breakoff is the buoyancy-driven detachment of subducted oceanic lithosphere from the light continental lithosphere that follows it during continental collision. In a recent paper Davies and von Blanckenburg [1994] have assessed the physical conditions leading to breakoff by quantitative thermomechanical modeling and have predicted various consequences in the evolution of mountain belts. Br...

Magnetic anomalies associatedwith new ocean crust formation in the Adare Basin off north-western Ross Sea (43–26Ma) can be traced directly into the Northern Basin that underlies the adjacent morphological continental shelf, implying a continuity in the emplacement of oceanic crust. Steep gravity gradients along the margins of the Northern Basin, particularly in the east, suggest that little ext...

Background: The variation of the radon progeny concentration in outdoor environment and meteorological parameters at fine resolution were studied for one year at a continental location, National Atmospheric Research Laboratory, Gadanki, India.  Materials and Methods: The concentrations were measured using Alpha Progeny Meter by collecting air samples at a height of 1 m above the Earth&rsqu...

As the oceanic plates move apart at midocean ridges, rocks from Earth’s mantle, far below, rise to fill the void, mostly via slow plastic flow. As the rock approaches the top of its journey, however, partial melting occurs, so that the upper 6 kilometers of oceanic crust are composed of melts, which both erupt on the seafloor as lava and crystallize beneath the surface to form what are known as...