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1. Data report: X-ray fluorescence core scanning of IODP Site U1474 sediments, Natal Valley, Southwest Indian Ocean, Expedition 361

   https://doi.org/10.14379/iodp.proc.361.201.2020  

   Babin, D.P.; Franzese, A.M.; Hemming, S.R.; Hall, I.R.; LeVay, L.J.; Barker, S.; Tejeda, L.; Simon, M.H. (June 2020, Proceedings of the International Ocean Discovery Program)

   null (Ed.)

   X-ray fluorescence (XRF) core scanning was conducted on core sections from International Ocean Discovery Program Site U1474, located in the Natal Valley off the coast of South Africa. The data were collected at 2 mm resolution along the 255 m length of the splice, but this setting resulted in noisy data. This problem was addressed by applying a 10 point running sum on the XRF data prior to converting peak area to element intensities. This effectively integrates 10 measurements into 1, representing an average over 2 cm resolution, and significantly improves noise in the data. With 25 calibration samples, whose element concentrations were derived using inductively coupled plasma–optical emission spectrometry, the XRF measurements were converted to concentrations using a univariate log-ratio calibration method. The resulting concentrations of terrigenously derived major elements (Al, Si, K, Ti, and Fe) are anticorrelated with Ca concentrations, indicating the main control on sediment chemistry is the variable proportion of terrigenous to in situ produced carbonate material. 

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2. Spatiotemporal quantification of organic matter accumulation in the Eocene Green River Formation, Bridger Basin, Wyoming

   https://doi.org/10.31711/ugap.v50i.117  

   Tofte, Marshal; Carroll, Alan (September 2022, Geosites)

   It has long been recognized that lakes can bury large amounts of organic carbon (CORG) in their sediment, with important consequences for conventional and unconventional petroleum resources and potentially for the global carbon cycle. The detailed distribution of lacustrine organic carbon through space and time is important to understanding its commercial and climatic implications, but has seldom been documented in detail. The Green River Formation offers a unique opportunity to improve this understanding, due to extensive Fischer assay analyses of its oil generative potential and to recently published radioisotopic age analyses of intercalat ed volcanic tuffs. Fischer assay analyses reveal distinctly different patterns of organic matter enrichment that correlate with different lacustrine facies associations. Histograms of oil generative potential for evaporative facies of the Wilkins Peak Member exhibit an approximately exponential distribution. This pattern is interpret ed to result from episodic expansion and contraction of Eocene Lake Gosiute across a low-gradient basin floor that experienced frequent desiccation. In contrast, histograms for fluctuating profundal facies of the upper Rife Bed of the Tipton Member and the lower LaClede Bed of the Laney Member exhibit an approximately normal or log normal distribution, with modes as high as 16–18 gallons per ton. This pattern is interpreted to reflect generally deeper conditions when the lake often intersected basin-bounding uplifts. Within the Bridger basin, burial of CORG was greatest in the south during initial Wilkins Peak Member deposition, reflecting greater rates of accommodation near the Uinta uplift. The locus of CORG burial shifted north during upper Wilkins Peak Member deposition, coincident with a decrease in differential accommodation. CORG burial during deposition of the upper Rife and lower LaClede Beds was greatest in the southeast, due either to greater accommodation or localized influx of river-borne nutrients. Average CORG burial fluxes are consistently ~4-5 g/m2 yr for each interval, which is an order of magnitude less than fluxes reported for small Holocene lakes in the northern hemisphere. Maximum rates of CORG burial during deposition of organic-rich mudstone beds (oil shale) were likely similar to Holocene lakes however. Deposition of carbonate minerals in the Bridger basin resulted in additional, inorganic carbon burial. Overall it appears that carbon burial by Eocene lakes could have influenced the global carbon cycle, but only if synchronized across multiple lake systems. 

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3. Neogene sedimentary record of the evolution of a translated strike-slip basin along the Denali fault system: Implications for timing of displacement, composite basin development, and regional tectonics of southern Alaska

   https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02435.1  

   Allen, Wai K.; Ridgway, Kenneth D.; Benowitz, J.A.; Waldien, T.S.; Roeske, S.M.; Fitzgerald, P.G.; Gillis, R.J. (February 2022, Geosphere)

   Analysis of the late Miocene to Holocene McCallum sedimentary basin, located along the south side of the eastern Denali fault system, provides a better understanding of strike-slip basin evolution, timing of displacement on the Denali fault, and tectonics of the southern Alaska convergent margin. Analysis of the McCallum basin utilizing measured stratigraphic sections, lithofacies analyses, and 40Ar/39Ar tephra ages documented a 564-m-thick, two-member stratigraphy. Fine-grained, lacustrine-dominated environments characterized deposition of the lower member, and coarse-grained, stream-dominated alluvial-fan environments characterized deposition of the upper member. The 40Ar/39Ar dating of tephras indicated that the lower member was deposited from 6.1 to 5.0 Ma, and the upper member was deposited from 5.0 to 3.8 Ma. Our stratigraphic analysis of the McCallum basin illuminates the development of a composite strike-slip basin, with the deposition of the lower member occurring along a transtensional fault section, and deposition of the upper member occurring along a transpressional fault section. This change in depositional and tectonic settings is interpreted to reflect ~79–90 km of transport of the basin along the Denali fault system based on Pleistocene–Holocene slip rates. Previous studies of the timing of Cenozoic displacement on the Denali fault system utilizing sedimentary records emphasized a Paleogene component; our findings, however, also require a significant Neogene component. Neogene strike-slip displacement and basin development along the Denali fault system were broadly coeval with development of high topography and related clastic wedges across southern Alaska in response to flat slab subduction of the Yakutat microplate. 

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4. Data report: X-ray fluorescence scanning of Site U1574, Vøring Plateau, IODP Expedition 396

   Alvarez_Zarikian, CA; Yager, SL; Harper, DT; Christopoulou, M; Clementi, VJ; Varela, N (October 2024, Proceedings of the International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition reports)

   Semiquantitative elemental results from X-ray fluorescence (XRF) scanning of sediment cores from International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Site U1574 in the Vøring Plateau, Norwegian Margin, are presented in this report. XRF elemental data were collected every 1 cm from a stratigraphically complete and continuous cored section with 102% recovery from the sea bottom to ~170 meters below seafloor in Hole U1574C. We report raw element intensities (counts) for Al, Si, K, Ca, Ti, Fe, Br, Sr, and Zr and identify covariation patterns consistent with lithofacies variations. Our high-resolution XRF scanning was conducted to better characterize the sediment depositional history at Site U1574 and to aid interpretation of past environmental and oceanographic conditions in the Norwegian Margin, targeting the earliest incursion of deep water into the young North Atlantic Ocean during the Early to Middle Eocene. The high-resolution XRF data also may help improve the age-depth model for the sediment succession at Site U1574. 

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5. Stitch in the ditch: Nutzotin Mountains (Alaska) fluvial strata and a dike record ca. 117–114 Ma accretion of Wrangellia with western North America and initiation of the Totschunda fault

   https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02127.1  

   Trop, Jeffrey M.; Benowitz, Jeffrey A.; Koepp, Donald Q.; Sunderlin, David; Brueseke, Matthew E.; Layer, Paul W.; Fitzgerald, Paul G. (November 2019, Geosphere)

   The Nutzotin basin of eastern Alaska consists of Upper Jurassic through Lower Cretaceous siliciclastic sedimentary and volcanic rocks that depositionally overlie the inboard margin of Wrangellia, an accreted oceanic plateau. We present igneous geochronologic data from volcanic rocks and detrital geochronologic and paleontological data from nonmarine sedimentary strata that provide constraints on the timing of deposition and sediment provenance. We also report geochronologic data from a dike injected into the Totschunda fault zone, which provides constraints on the timing of intra–suture zone basinal deformation. The Beaver Lake formation is an important sedimentary succession in the northwestern Cordillera because it provides an exceptionally rare stratigraphic record of the transition from marine to nonmarine depositional conditions along the inboard margin of the Insular terranes during mid-Cretaceous time. Conglomerate, volcanic-lithic sandstone, and carbonaceous mudstone/shale accumulated in fluvial channel-bar complexes and vegetated overbank areas, as evidenced by lithofacies data, the terrestrial nature of recovered kerogen and palynomorph assemblages, and terrestrial macrofossil remains of ferns and conifers. Sediment was eroded mainly from proximal sources of upper Jurassic to lower Cretaceous igneous rocks, given the dominance of detrital zircon and amphibole grains of that age, plus conglomerate with chiefly volcanic and plutonic clasts. Deposition was occurring by ca. 117 Ma and ceased by ca. 98 Ma, judging from palynomorphs, the youngest detrital ages, and ages of crosscutting intrusions and underlying lavas of the Chisana Formation. Following deposition, the basin fill was deformed, partly eroded, and displaced laterally by dextral displacement along the Totschunda fault, which bisects the Nutzotin basin. The Totschunda fault initiated by ca. 114 Ma, as constrained by the injection of an alkali feldspar syenite dike into the Totschunda fault zone. These results support previous interpretations that upper Jurassic to lower Cretaceous strata in the Nutzotin basin accumulated along the inboard margin of Wrangellia in a marine basin that was deformed during mid-Cretaceous time. The shift to terrestrial sedimentation overlapped with crustal-scale intrabasinal deformation of Wrangellia, based on previous studies along the Lost Creek fault and our new data from the Totschunda fault. Together, the geologic evidence for shortening and terrestrial deposition is interpreted to reflect accretion/suturing of the Insular terranes against inboard terranes. Our results also constrain the age of previously reported dinosaur footprints to ca. 117 Ma to ca. 98 Ma, which represent the only dinosaur fossils reported from eastern Alaska. 

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