Terra Nova

It is difficult to measure karst volume but important to do so to access risk of sinkhole formation. Measurements of airflow and atmospheric pressure pattern on a water well in buried karst of the overexploited Tournai hydrogeological basin (Belgium) show that inflow and ouflow are highly correlated to atmsopheric pressure and differences of external and internal air densities. The volume of natural voids in connection with the well within the vadose zone can best be estimated by a calculation based on outflow under constant atmospheric pressure, which suggests a possible cavoty volume of 700 000 m3 indicating the likelihood of sinkhole formation.

Cheko, a small lake located in Siberia close to the epicentre of the 1908 Tunguska explosion, might fill a crater left by the impact of a fragment of a Cosmic Body. Sediment cores from the lake’s bottom were studied to support or reject this hypothesis. A 175-cm long core, collected near the center of the lake, consists of an upper ∼1 m thick sequence of lacustrine deposits overlaying coarser chaotic material. 210Pb and 137Cs indicate that the transition from lower to upper sequence occurred close to the time of the Tunguska Event. Pollen analysis reveals that remains of aquatic plants are abundant in the top post-1908 sequence, but are absent in the lower pre-1908 portion of the core. These results, including organic C, N and δ13C data, suggest that Lake Cheko formed at the time of the Tunguska Event.

ABSTRACT The North-Western region of the Ukrainian shield represents Palaeoproterozoic continental crust formed essentially during two orogenic events at ca. 2.1–2.05 and 2.0–1.95 Ga. At 1.8–1.74 this area was intruded by huge Korosten anorthosite–mangerite–charnockite granite complex. At least three generations of mafic dykes can be distinguished in the region. We report new U-Pb data obtained for a suite of Ni-enriched dolerite dykes and layered gabbroic intrusions. Our results indicate that the Tomashgorod dyke was formed at 1787.4 ± 6.4 Ma, the Prutivka intrusion at 1777.0 ± 4.7 Ma and the Kamenka massif at ca. 1.79 Ga. This time coincides with the collision of the Fennoscandian and Sarmatian segments of the East European craton and it is contemporaneous with the initial stages of evolution of the Korosten complex. Hf isotopic compositions of zircons indicate that these rocks originated due to melting of moderately depleted mantle material.

The ongoing debate about the Messinian salinity crisis in the Mediternean is fuelled in part by the lack of an adequate time control. The most accurate and, at the same time, detailed constraints are nowadays provided by the astronomical dating technique. Here we present an astronomical age model for the cyclically bedded Tripoli diatomite Formation on Sicily (pre-evaporite Messinian, Italy) based on an integrated stratigraphic study of three key-sections, Falconara, Gibliscemi and Capodarso. Characteristic sedimentary cycle patterns allow (i) the sections to be cyclostratigraphically correlated, the ‘bed-to-bed’ correlations being confirmed by high-resolution planktonic foraminiferal biostratigraphy, and (ii) the Tripoli cycles to be calibrated to the astronomical record. Despite minor misfits the correctness of the tuning is evident from the match between precession-obliquity interference in the astronomical target and its reflection in the sedimentary cycle record. The tuning provides absolute astronomical ages for all sedimentary cycles and planktonic foraminiferal events. The base of the Tripoli is astronomically dated at 7.005 Ma, indicating that the onset of diatomite formation is diachronous in the Mediternean since it started 300 000 years earlier on Sicily than on Gavdos, south of Crete. The top of the Tripoli, and thus the onset of the salinity crisis proper on Sicily, arrives at 5.98 Ma.