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The Mount Meager volcanic complex (MMVC) is one of the eight major calc-alkaline volcanic centres within the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt, Canada. MMVC volcanism spans ∼2 Ma and has been mainly intermediate to felsic in composition. However, small-volume mafic centres are located around the periphery of the Mount Meager massif and have been collectively referred to as the Mosaic Assemblage or Mount Meager basalts. Here, we present new 40Ar/39Ar ages and expanded chemical datasets for the MMVC mafic rocks. We show that mafic eruptive ages are both older and longer-lived than previously interpreted, spanning the last ∼450 ka, and occurring in four episodes at ∼440, 200, 106, and 17 ka. We also found that chemical signatures for the MMVC mafic rocks have evolved across the four periods, fluctuating from “OIB”-like melt characteristics to more typical slab-influenced, calc-alkaline, before returning to “OIB”-like in the youngest phase. These findings provide the first evidence of a temporal-chemical evolution of melt sourcing for the Garibaldi belt volcanism. Lastly, field mapping has identified edifices and deposits that are glaciovolcanic in origin (vs. nonglaciovolcanic), which were used in conjunction with our new 40Ar/39Ar age estimates to document the presence or absence of Coast Mountain sectors of earlier Cordilleran ice sheets in southwest British Columbia over the last 500 ka.

Swan Valley is a graben in eastern Idaho that formed by extension along the Grand Valley and Snake River faults and preserves a record of explosive rhyolitic volcanism sourced from the Yellowstone Plateau and Heise volcanic fields, as well as locally sourced basaltic lavas. The Pleistocene Basalt of Antelope Flat intersected the South Fork of the Snake River and generated a temporary hyaloclastite dam. Previous workers proposed that the lava dam allowed for the accumulation of water that led to the generation of paleo-Swan Lake. Although lacustrine deposits from paleo-Swan Lake have not been described or mapped, several-meters thick intercalated hyaloclastites and pillow lavas require the interaction between continued volcanism and standing water. In this work, we present new geochemical, geochronologic, and paleomagnetic data to reinterpret the eruptive history of the basalts within the valley, estimate the volume and duration to fill paleo-Swan Lake, and calculate incision rates of the Snake River through Quaternary basalts. Using geochemical and paleomagnetic data, we reinterpret deposits previously mapped as the Basalt of Antelope Flat as three temporally distinct units. The duration to fill paleo-Swan Lake is calculated as 12 to 20 years. An absence of lacustrine deposits, shorelines, or other indicators of a lake environment led us to propose that shallow, marshy, wetland conditions existed locally to produce hydrovolcanic deposits characteristic of the Basalt of Antelope Flat. We report a new 40Ar/39Ar age of 904 ± 11 ka (2σ) for the Basalt of Antelope Flat, which we use to determine an average incision rate of 0.014 cm/yr for the Snake River through Quaternary basalts. Our multi-method approach provides updated constraints to the eruptive and geomorphological history of southeastern Idaho.

This paper presents a preliminary study of the Middle Palaeolithic lithic industries recovered at six selected open-air sites in the Latium region (central Italy), part of a regional cultural complex known as the “Pontinian”. The pedo-stratigraphic analysis combined with 40Ar/ 39Ar age constraints on the sites permits us to provide for the first time a geomorphological and chronological (300–40 ka) framework for several open-air sites in central Italy. The temporal range is remarkably coincident with the Neanderthal presence in this region. Moreover, the lithic collections analysed include the oldest occurrence of a Mousterian industry in this region. The present work, therefore, provides the background context for future re-evaluation of the peculiar Pontinian techno-complex through a more in-depth technological approach and its comparison with the other Neanderthal occurrences in central Italy.

40Ar/39Ar geochronology constraints to aggradational phases and grainsize variations show that the sedimentary filling of the Liri fluvial-lacustrine basin (central Italy) recorded the occurrence of deglaciation events associated with global meltwater pulses. Integrating these data with those from the Tiber River catchment basin, we find a precise match between the ages of gravel deposition and the occurrence of moderate sea-level rise events which anticipate those more marked during the glacial termination V and IV in the Red Sea relative sea level curve. Such correspondence suggests that gravel deposition is facilitated by melting of Apennine mountain range glaciers, which provide the water transport energy and a surplus of clastic input to the rivers draining the mountain regions and flowing into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Therefore, the thick gravel beds intercalated in the sedimentary filling of the catchment basins of the major rivers in central Italy may be regarded as an equivalent proxy of large deglaciation events, similar to the ice-rafted debris in northern Atlantic. Consistent with this hypothesis, we also show the close correspondence between the occurrence of particularly mild (warmer) minima of the mean summer insolation at 65° N and these early aggradational phases, as well as with other anomalous early sea-level rises occurred 750 ka and 540 ka at the onset of glacial termination VIII and VI, and 40 ka at the onset of the so-called Heinrich events.

New geochronologic data in the southern Lake Superior region provide key information on the timing and nature of tectonic activity that pre-and post-date initial Paleoproterozoic growth of Laurentia during the geon 18 Penokean orogeny. The obducted Pembine ophiolite formed along the edge of a Paleoproterozoic ocean basin at least 30 m.y. prior to Penokean island arc/microcontinent accretion beginning at 1860 Ma. Following Penokean orogenesis, intrusion of mafic dikes at 1817 ± 2 Ma indicate a period of extension that coincided with a 30 m.y. gap in orogenic felsic magmatism at 1835-1805 Ma (between the Penokean and Yavapai orogenies) and likely represents relaxation of Penokean compression and a tectonic switch to intra-arc extension related to initiation of Yavapai subduction. Subsequent Yavapai arc accretion (1750-1720 Ma) resulted in pervasive ductile deformation of the dikes and host rocks at temperatures of ~700 °C, previously attributed to Penokean deformation. Geon 16 Mazatzal overprinting of the accreted Penokean and Yavapai provinces was widespread but of lower grade overall (greenschist facies), and the thermal effects of the 1476-1470 Ma shallow level Wolf River batholith was limited to a 10-15 km contact zone surrounding the intrusion. In contrast to the Archean Superior Province to the north, Paleoproterozoic terranes in the southern Lake Superior area experienced widespread low-temperature reheating and cooling of shallow crustal levels at ca. 1.1-1.0 Ga attributed primarily to magmatic underplating with little subsequent Neoproterozoic exhumation. In the southern Lake Superior region widespread magmatic underplating likely thickened, strengthened, and stabilized Proterozoic lithosphere but destabilized Archean cratonized Superior Province lithosphere to the north.

The present study focuses on the morphotectonic evolution of the axial portion of the Southern Apennine chain between the lower Calore River valley and the northern Camposauro mountain front (Campania Region). A multidisciplinary approach was used, including geomorphological, field-geology, stratigraphical, morphotectonic, structural, Ar-40/Ar-39 and tephrostratigraphical data. Results indicate that, from the Lower Pleistocene onwards, this sector of the chain was affected by extensional tectonics responsible for the onset of the sedimentation of Quaternary fluvial, alluvial fan and slope deposits. Fault systems are mainly composed of NW-SE, NE-SW and W-E trending strike-slip and normal faults, associated to NW-SE and NE-SW oriented extensions. Fault scarps, stratigraphical and structural data and morphotectonic indicators suggest that these faults affected the wide piedmont area of the northern Camposauro mountain front in the Lower Pleistocene-Upper Pleistocene time span. Faults affected both the oldest Quaternary slope deposits (Laiano Synthem, Lower Pleistocene) and the overlying alluvial fan system deposits constrained between the late Middle Pleistocene and the Holocene. The latter are geomorphologically and chrono-stratigraphically grouped into four generations, I generation: late Middle Pleistocene-early Upper Pleistocene, with tephra layers Ar-40/Ar-39 dated to 158 +/- 6 and 113 +/- 7 ka; II generation: Upper Pleistocene, with tephra layers correlated with the Campanian Ignimbrite (39ka) and with the slightly older Campi Flegrei activity (Ar-40/Ar-39 age 48 +/- 7 ka); III generation: late Upper Pleistocene-Lower Holocene, with tephra layers correlated with the Neapolitan Yellow Tuff (15ka); IV generation: Holocene in age. The evolution of the first three generations was controlled by Middle Pleistocene extensional tectonics, while Holocene fans do not show evidence of tectonic activity. Nevertheless, considering the moderate to high magnitude historical seismicity of the study area, we cannot rule out that some of the recognized faults may still be active. Copyright (c) 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

© 2014 Societa Geologica Italiana, Roma. New 40Ar/39Ar ages and major and trace element geochemistry of the middle-late Miocene Cabo de Gata volcanic complex, southeast Spain, indicate that the volcanic activity of the Cabo de Gata volcanic zone developed over a short period through several pulses of geochemically and isotopically different parental magmas. The oldest volcanic rocks exposed in the Cabo de Gata volcanic zone are the shoshonite and high-K calc-Alkaline rocks of Bujo group, which cry - stallised from a parental magma transitional from calc-Alkaline to alkaline potassic generated through large degrees of partial melting, and then affected by a minor contribution from metasomatised veins and a larger one from the surrounding mantle wedge, in comparison to ultrapotassic melts. Subsequent partial melting of the mantle source produced typical calc-Alkaline parental magmas belonging to the Rodalquilar and Agua Amarga groups. Sr-Nd-Pb isotope and incompatible trace element distributions of Cabo de Gata rocks are in agreement with a mantle-wedge source affected by a two-fold metasomatism. The data suggested that mild potassic to sub-Alkaline subduction-related parental magmas (i.e., high-K calc-Alkaline and calc-Alkaline) were generated in the Cabo de Gata sector within a mantle wedge metasomatised by a fluid-dominated agent. In contrast, the enrichment in K2O of shoshonitic to ultrapotassic magmas was achieved through recycling of subducted sediments through melts that enriched the mantle wedge in K and related elements. Such a scenario can be easily reconciled with a geodynamic setting at the edge of a destructive plate margin with the subducted slab responsible for the recycling of sediments within the mantle wedge., Geochemical, petrographic and analytical work were supported by the Italian MIUR through Cofin_2004 (grants #2004040502_001 and 2004040502_002), Cofin_2008 (grants #2008HMHYFP_002 and 2008HMHYFP_004) and Cofin_2010-2011 (grants #2010TT22SC_001, 2010TT22SC_005 and 2010TT22SC_006; 2010TT22SC_003) projects, to Sandro Conticelli and Massimo Mattei, respectively. Further financial support for geochronological analyses was provided by Spanish projects CGL2009-06968-E, CGL2005-03511/BTE and HI2006-0073 to Carles C. Soriano.

The paper deals with the chronostratigraphy of the lacustrine infilling of the Mercure basin, an intramontane depression of the Southern Apennines, located along the Calabria-Lucania boundary.A preliminary tephrochronologic investigation and pollen analyses were carried out on the infilling succession exposed along V-shaped tributary valleys of the Mercure river. Lithological and chemical features of the thickest and best preserved tephra layer were fully characterised, and single crystal 40Ar/39Ar dating was performed yielding an age of 514±16 ka. Pollen analyses revealed the occurrence of warm and humid interglacial conditions that were correlated to MIS 13 on the basis of the age determination. The chemical compositions of glasses indicate that the Sabatinian volcanic field is the most probable source of the investigated tephra layer. Although chemical features support a correlation with the Tufo Giallo della Via Tiberina multiphase eruption that occurred between 561 and 548 ka, the integration of tephrochronology and pollen analysis points to a younger age, falling within MIS 13. We propose a correlation with one of the four explosive events that occurred in the Latial district from 514 to 449 ka. The Mercure tephra layer, owing to its age and great distance from the presumed source, represents a valid correlating tool for MIS 13 in central-southern Italy.