ALBERT

Notes: [Auszug] Arising from: R. Dalton Nature doi: 10.1038/news050704-4 (2005)10.1038/news050704-4 A report of human footprints preserved in 40,000-year-old volcanic ash near Puebla, Mexico (http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/exhibit.asp?id=3616&tip=1), was the ...

Notes: [Auszug] Clark et al. reply Faupl et al. question our confidence in the geochemical correlation that anchors the younger age constraint of 154 kyr on the Herto antiquities. According to convention, we reported the tephrochemical correlation as the most probable explanation for the ...

Notes: [Auszug] Clarifying the geographic, environmental and behavioural contexts in which the emergence of anatomically modern Homo sapiens occurred has proved difficult, particularly because Africa lacked adequate geochronological, palaeontological and archaeological evidence. The discovery of anatomically ...

Notes: [Auszug] The origin of Australopithecus, the genus widely interpreted as ancestral to Homo, is a central problem in human evolutionary studies. Australopithecus species differ markedly from extant African apes and candidate ancestral hominids such as Ardipithecus, Orrorin and Sahelanthropus. The earliest ...

Notes: [Auszug] Comparative biomolecular studies suggest that the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, lived during the Late Miocene–Early Pliocene. Fossil evidence of Late Miocene–Early Pliocene hominid evolution is rare and limited to a few sites in ...

Notes: [Auszug] The Middle Awash study area of Ethiopia's Afar rift has yielded abundant vertebrate fossils (≈ 10,000), including several hominid taxa. The study area contains a long sedimentary record spanning Late Miocene (5.3–11.2 Myr ago) to Holocene times. Exposed in a unique ...

Notes: We present new U/Pb and Pb/Pb radiometric age data from two tectono-stratigraphic units of the regionally extensive Bolu Massif, in the W Pontides (İstanbul Fragment), N Turkey. A structurally lower unit (Sünnice Group) is cut by small meta-granitic intrusions, whereas the structurally higher unit comprises meta-volcanic rocks (Çaşurtepe Fm) cut by meta-granitic plutons (Tüllükiriş and Kapıkaya plutons). U/Pb single-crystal dating of zircons from the Kapıkaya Pluton yielded a concordant cluster, with a mean 238U/206Pb age of 565.3 ± 1.9 Ma. Zircons from the Tüllükiriş Pluton (affected by Pb loss) gave a 207Pb/206Pb age of 576 ± 6 Ma age (Late Precambrian). Small meta-granitic intrusions cutting the Sünnice Group yielded a less precise 207Pb/206Pb age of 262 ± 19 Ma (Early Permian). The older ages from the Bolu Massif confirm the existence of latest Precambrian arc magmatism related to subduction of a Cadomian ocean. We infer that the Bolu Massif represents a fragment of a Cadomian active margin. Cadomian orogenic units were dispersed as exotic terranes throughout the Variscan and Tethyan orogens, and the Bolu Massif probably reached its present position prior to latest Palaeozoic time. Our dating results also confirm that NW Turkey was affected by Hercynian magmatism related to subduction of Palaeotethys, as inferred for other areas of the Pontides.

Notes: [Auszug] The genesis, evolution and fate of Homo erectus have been explored palaeontologically since the taxon's recognition in the late nineteenth century. Current debate is focused on whether early representatives from Kenya and Georgia should be classified as a separate ancestral species (‘H. ...

Notes: Abstract The Santa Rosa mylonite zone developed predominantly from a granodiorite protolith in the eastern margin of the Peninsular Ranges batholith. A wide variation in K−Ar biotite dates within the zone is shown to reflect the times of cooling through closure temperatures whose variability is chiefly a result of deformation-induced reduction in grain size. We suggest that such variation generally may be exploited to place constraints on the timing of deformation episodes. Previous workers have shown that deformation in the Santa Rosa mylonite zone involved the formation of mylonites and an imbricate series of low-angle faults which divide the area into structural units. Field work, petrographic studies, and TEM analysis of deformation mechanisms in biotite show that the granodiorite mylonite, the lowermost structural unit, formed below the granodiorite solidus. The granodiorite mylonite varies from protomylonite to ultramylonite, with regions of high strain distributed heterogeneously within the zone. Previously reported biotite and hornblende K−Ar dates from the granodiorite protolith below (82–89 Ma) and the Asbestos Mountain granodiorite above (61–68 Ma) the mylonite zone indicate dramatically dissimilar thermal histories for the lowermost and uppermost structural units. Other workers' fission track dates on sphene, zircon, and apatite from the granodiorite mylonite and the Asbestos Mountain granodiorite suggest thermal homogenization and rapid cooling to ∼100° C by ca 60 Ma. Within and adjacent to the mylonite zone, K−Ar dates on 5 samples of biotite from variably deformed granodiorite range from 62–76 Ma; dates are not correlated with structural depth but clearly decrease with degree of deformation and concomitant grain size reduction. 40Ar/39Ar incremental heating analyses of biotite from the granodiorite protolith reveals no evidence of excess argon and produces a relatively flat age spectrum. 40Ar/39Ar incremental heating analysis of biotite from the granodiorite mylonite discloses discordance consistent with 39Ar recoil loss. K analysis of samples, allowing K−Ar dates to be calculated, is therefore recommended as an adjunct to 40Ar/39Ar step heating analysis in rocks that have experienced similar deformation. During mylonitization, biotite grain size reduction through intracrystalline cataclasis results in estimated grain dimensions as small as 0.05 μm locally within porphyroclasts as large as 1 mm. Because biotite compositions are relatively Uniform (Fe/[Fe+Mg+Mn+Ti+AlVI]=0.47–0.52) and show no systematic variation with grain size, compositional dependence of activation energy and diffusivity can be eliminated as sources of variation in Ar retention. Ar closure temperatures, calculated with appropriate diffusion parameters for the observed grain sizes, are in the range ∼220–280° C and define a cooling curve consistent with a thermal history intermediate between those of the granodiorite protolith below and the Asbestos Mountain granodiorite above the mylonite zone. Changes in the slope of the cooling curve indicate that the main deformation episode initiated at or above ca 330° C (∼80 Ma), above the closure temperature for thermally activated diffusion of argon in biotite, and continued to a minimum of ca 220–260° C (∼62 Ma).

Notes: Abstract The intraplate Cameroon Volcanic Line (CVL) straddles the African-South Atlantic continent-ocean boundary and is composed mainly of alkaline basic volcanic rocks. Voluminous silicic volcanics characterize the continental sector of the CVL. We present here new geochemical, isotopic (Sr-Nd-O) and 40Ar/39Ar geochronological data on the main silicic volcanic centres of the Western (Mt. Oku, Sabga and Mt. Bambouto) and Eastern (Ngaoundere plateau) Cameroon Highlands. The silicic volcanism of Mt. Oku, Sabga and Mt. Bambouto occurred between 25 and 15 Ma and is represented by voluminous quartz-normative trachytes and minor rhyolitic ignimbrites. At Mt. Bambouto central volcano about 700 m of silicic volcanics erupted in less than 2.7 million years. These silicic volcanics are associated with slightly to moderately alkaline basalts and minor basanites. In general, onset of the silicic volcanism migrated from NE (Oku: 25 Ma) to SW (Sabga: 23 Ma; Bambouto: 18 Ma; and Mt. Manengouba: 12 Ma). The silicic volcanism of the Ngaoundere plateau (eastern branch of the CVL) is instead dominated by nepheline-normative trachytes which are associated with strongly alkaline basalts and basanitic rocks. These Ne-trachytes are younger (11-9 Ma) than the Q-trachytes of the Western Highlands. The least differentiated silicic volcanics are isotopically similar (87Sr/86Sr 〈 0.70380; 143Nd/144Nd 〉 0.51278) to the associated alkaline basalts suggesting differentiation processes without appreciable interaction with crustal materials. Such interactions may, however, have played some role in the genesis of the most evolved silicic volcanics which have 87Sr/86Sr as high as 0.705–0.714. Fractional crystallization is the preferred mechanism for genesis of the silicic melts of both Western and Eastern Highlands, as shown by modeling major and trace element variations. The genesis of the least evolved Q-trachytes from the Western Highlands, starting from slightly to moderately alkaline basalts, is compatible with fractionation of dominantly plagioclase, clinopyroxene and magnetite. Crystal fractionation may have occurred at low pressure and at QFM buffer f O2conditions. Parental magmas of the Ngaoundere Ne-trachytes are likely instead to have been strongly alkaline basalts which evolved through crystal fractionation at higher P (6-2 kbar) and f O2 (QFM + 2). The migration (25 to 12 Ma) of the silicic volcanism from NE to SW in the continental sector of the CVL is reminiscent of that (31-5 Ma) of the onset of the basic volcanism in the oceanic sector (Principe to Pagalu islands) of the CVL. These ages, and that (11-9 Ma) of the silicic volcanism of the Ngaoundere plateau, indicate that the Cameroon Volcanic Line as a whole may not be easily interpreted as the surface expression of hot-spot magmatism.