ALBERT

Description: The Cycladic blueschist belt, Greece, is mostly submerged below sea level and regional correlations are difficult to establish. Marbles are widespread within the belt and locally used as marker horizons to subdivide monotonous schist sequences. However, owing to the lack of distinctive petrographic characteristics, the marbles have not been used for island-to-island correlations. This study aims to investigate the potential of Sr-, C- and O-isotope compositions of marbles as a tool for unravelling the litho- and/or tectonostratigraphic relationships across the Cycladic islands, and as a proxy for the time of sediment formation. For this purpose, we have studied metamorphic carbonate rocks from the islands of Tinos, Andros, Syros, Sifnos and Naxos. Identical 87Sr/86Sr values for certain marble horizons occurring on Tinos, Andros and Sifnos are interpreted to document coeval regional carbonate precipitation. The 87Sr/86Sr values of the apparently least altered samples intersect the seawater curve multiple times within the most likely time interval of original carbonate precipitation (〈 240 Ma; as indicated by previously published ion probe U–Pb zircon data) and thus an unequivocal age assignment is not possible. Very broad temporal correlations are possible, but more subtle distinctions are not feasible. On Andros, the overlapping Sr-isotope values of marbles representing the lowest and highest parts of the metamorphic succession are in accordance with a model suggesting isoclinal folding or thrusting of a single horizon, or very fast sedimentation. In contrast, distinct 87Sr/86Sr values for samples from Tinos, representing different levels of the metamorphic succession, suggest that these rocks represent a temporal succession and not the tectonic repetition of a single horizon. Based on Sr-,O- and C-isotope characteristics alone the time equivalence ofmarbles occurring on different islands could not be documented unambiguously. However, by using various combinations of these parameters, some occurrences can be discriminated from the overall sample population. The new data further accentuate the general potential of coupled Sr-, C- and O-isotope characteristics for identification of archaeological provenance and complement existing datasets for Aegean marbles.

Description: Determination of the controlling nucleation and recrystallisation mechanisms from a samples microstructure are essential for understanding how the microstructure formed and evolved through time. The aim of our research was to apply a quantified analytical approach to the identification of the controlling nucleation, recrystallisation and microstructural modification mechanisms. We used electron backscatter diffraction to quantify the microstructures of naturally deformed quartz-rich rocks which were deformed at various temperature and pressure conditions. Our results show that ratios of the recrystallised grain size to the subgrain size with values less than 1 (0.5–0.7 in the data presented here) suggest bulge nucleation, whereas ratios of ∼1 suggest subgrain rotation nucleation. Other supporting evidence for subgrain rotation nucleation is an increase in misorientation from the centre of an original protolith ‘parent’ grain to the edge. All samples show evidence for modification of the microstructure due to grain boundary sliding including increased misorientation angles between grains and movement of recrystallised grains between parent grains. By systematically analysing sample microstructures it is possible to separate out evidence to determine the controlling nucleation and recrystallisation mechanisms, as well as being able to identify microstructure modification mechanisms. Using microstructural quantification via EBSD allows a systematic methodology to analyse samples from any location from an objective viewpoint.

Description: The La Paz Centro - Malpaisillo Lineament (LPML) in west-central Nicaragua is a north-south striking, 20 km long chain of maars and cinder cones, which intersects the northwest-southeast striking main volcanic front. A tectonic control of LPML volcanism is likely but only evident for the Malpaisillo fissure at the northern end of the LPML. Previous work demonstrated geochemical variations implying changes in mantle-source composition (i.e., added slab components) along the Central American Volcanic Arc at spatial scales of some 10’s of kilometers. Our study of the LPML shows that minor but systematic changes also occur across the arc within 20 km distance. Variations in trace element ratios such as Zr/Nb, Ba/Th, Ba/La, Th/Zr, U/La and La/Yb along the LPML, i.e. across the volcanic front indicate little change in the degree of partial melting but an increase particularly in the hemipelagic sediment component in the mantle source from the fore arc towards the arc front, followed by a decrease behind the arc. Interestingly, the slab component is most prominent just in front of the arc. About 60 km southeast of the LPML, the Nejapa-Miraflores volcanic and tectonic lineament, which marks a 20 km north-south offset in the arc, differs substantially from the LPML. There is a wide scatter in incompatible trace element ratios indicating a heterogeneous mantle source at small spatial scales (c. 1 km). This mantle heterogeneity may represent vertical rather than across-arc variations and is probably related to the arc offset, because in the absence of such offset at the LPML mantle source conditions vary much less but more systematically.