ALBERT

Description: The interaction between thrust and strike slip fault systems is well detailed in Pakistan where the Chaman transform zone connects the Makran and Himalayan convergence zones and contains an internal convergence zone in the Zhob district. The transform zone contains numerous strike slip faults of which the Chaman fault proper is the westernmost. We can demonstrate at least 200 km of left lateral displacement along the Chaman fault alone. In the Zhob belt N-S shortening by folds and a major thrust fault amounts to several dozen kilometres. The 400 km wide Makran convergence zone is now being shortened by E-W oriented folds, thrust faults, and reverse faults. As these faults in the Makran zone approach the transform zone, their traces bend to the N and motion on each of them becomes oblique, combining reverse and left lateral slip. They merge continuously with the strike slip faults of the Chaman transform zone. The Makran thrust system and the Chaman transform zone first became active in the late Oligocene or early Miocene. Later (Pliocene?), a component of left lateral shear occurred across the entire Makran Zone in association with the opening of the newly identified Haman-i-Mashkel fault trough S of the Chagai Hills and W of the Ras Koh. The total displacement and displacement rate across the Chaman transform zone varies in response to the rates of convergence in the plates E and W of the zone.

Description: The widespread occurrence of organic-carbon-rich strata (‘black shales’) in certain portions of Jurassic, Cretaceous and Cenozoic sequences has been well-documented from Deep Sea Drilling Project sites in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and from sequences, now exposed on land, originally deposited in the Tethyan ocean. These ancient black shales usually have been explained by analogy with examples of modern deep-sea sediments in which organic matter locally is preserved by (1) increasing the supply of organic matter, (2) increasing the rate of sedimentation, and/or (3) decreasing the oxygen content of the bottom water. However, detailed examination of many black shales reveals characteristics that cannot be explained by simple local models, including: their approximate coincidence in time globally; their occurrence in a variety of different environments, including open oxygenated oceans, restricted basins, deep and shallow water; their interbedding with organic-carbonpoor strata which often dominate a so-called black shale sequence; their deposition by pelagic, hemipelagic, turbiditic and other processes; and the variations in type and amount of organic matter that occur even within the same sequence. A more complex model for the origin of black shales therefore appears most appropriate, in which the cyclic preservation of organic matter depends on the interplay of the three main variables, namely supply of organic matter, sedimentation rate, and deep-water oxygenation, each of which varies independently to some extent. The variation and relative importance of these parameters in individual basins and widespread black shale deposition in general are linked globally and temporally by changes in global sea-level, climate and related changes in oceanic circulation. An important and often overlooked factor for the supply of organic matter to deep-basin sediments is the frequency and magnitude of redepositional processes. The interplay of these variables is discussed in relation to the middle Cretaceous and Cenozoic organic-carbon-rich strata, in particular, which show marked differences in the relative importance of the different variables.

Description: A model for interstitial silica concentrations is derived, incorporating biological mixing of sediments. This model predicts concentrations and gradients and can account for the observed geographical variations in interstitial silica on the basis of a dynamic balance between solution of silica particles and diffusion from the sediments. The flux of particulate biogenous silica into the sediments is confirmed as an important parameter controlling interstitial silica concentrations. Biological mixing of sea floor sediments also has an important influence on interstitial composition by modifyirig the depth at which dissolving particles react. Faster mixing raises the interstitial concentration. The rate at which siliceous particles dissolve also plays a role; the slower they dissolve, the greater the interstitial silica concentration. Measurements on near‐bottom waters of the Atlantic show no consistent gradients in dissolved silica, but antarctic bottom water seems significantly more variable in the benthic boundary layer than in the water mass above or in the benthic zone of North Atlantic deep water.

Description: Biological mixing in deep‐sea sediments is described in terms of a time‐dependent eddy diffusion model where mixing takes place to a depth L at constant eddy diffusivity D. The differential equation that describes this model has been solved for an impulse source of tracer delivered to the plane surface that forms the top of the mixed layer. The solution then serves as a Green's function, which can be used to determine the distribution of tracer in depth and in time for a surface input of tracer specified as any arbitrary function of time. The characteristic properties of the solution are dependent on the dimensionless parameter D/Lυ, where υ is the sedimentation rate. If D/Lυ is greater than 10, the surface layer becomes homogeneous, and the model is identical to the homogeneous layer model proposed by Berger and Heath (1968). If D/Lυ is less than 0.1, little mixing can take place before the sediments are buried, and so the surface concentration propagates downward into the sediments with little dispersion. For all values of D/Lυ the weighted mean depth of the concentration distribution is the depth at which an impulse source would be found in the sediment if no mixing had taken place. The microtektite data of Glass (1969, 1972) and Glass et al. (1973) indicate that abyssal sediments are mixed from the surface to a maximum mixing depth that ranges between 17 and 40 cm below the surface. Mixing occurs at rates between 1 and 100 cm2 kyr−1. Higher mixing rates may occur nearer the surface, but microtektite distributions cannot be used to estimate these rates in the presence of the deeper, slower mixing. Estimates for D based on dimensional analysis of sediment reworking rates for nearshore organisms (103–106 cm2 kyr−1) are used to predict abyssal mixing rates between 1 and 103 cm2 kyr−1 by invoking the assumption that mixing is proportional to biomass. Plutonium distributions in deep‐sea sediments (Noshkin and Bowen, 1973) indicate abyssal mixing rates ranging from 100 to 400 cm2 kyr−1.

Description: The interaction between thrust and strike slip fault systems is well detailed in Pakistan where the Chaman transform zone connects the Makran and Himalayan convergence zones and contains an internal convergence zone in the Zhob district. The transform zone contains numerous strike slip faults of which the Chaman fault proper is the westernmost. We can demonstrate at least 200 km of left lateral displacement along the Chaman fault alone. In the Zhob belt N-S shortening by folds and a major thrust fault amounts to several dozen kilometres. The 400 km wide Makran convergence zone is now being shortened by E-W oriented folds, thrust faults, and reverse faults. As these faults in the Makran zone approach the transform zone, their traces bend to the N and motion on each of them becomes oblique, combining reverse and left lateral slip. They merge continuously with the strike slip faults of the Chaman transform zone. The Makran thrust system and the Chaman transform zone first became active in the late Oligocene or early Miocene. Later (Pliocene?), a component of left lateral shear occurred across the entire Makran Zone in association with the opening of the newly identified Haman-i-Mashkel fault trough S of the Chagai Hills and W of the Ras Koh. The total displacement and displacement rate across the Chaman transform zone varies in response to the rates of convergence in the plates E and W of the zone.