Richard J. Moscati

Major element and oxygen isotope geochemistry of vapour-phase garnet from the Topopah Spring Tuff at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, USA

Abstract Twenty vapour-phase garnets were studied in two samples of the Topopah Spring Tuff of the Paintbrush Group from Yucca Mountain, in southern Nevada. The Miocene-age Topopah Spring Tuff is a 350 m thick, devitrified, moderately to densely welded ash-flow tuff that is zoned compositionally from high-silica rhyolite to latite. During cooling of the tuff, escaping vapour produced lithophysae (former gas cavities) lined with an assemblage of tridymite (commonly inverted to cristobalite or quartz), sanidine and locally, hematite and/or garnet. Vapour-phase topaz and economic deposits associated commonly with topaz-bearing rhyolites (characteristically enriched in F) were not found in the Topopah Spring Tuff at Yucca Mountain. Based on their occurrence only in lithophysae, the garnets are not primary igneous phenocrysts, but rather crystals that grew from a F-poor magmaderived vapour trapped during and after emplacement of the tuff. The garnets are euhedral, vitreous, reddish brown, trapezohedral, as large as 2 mm in diameter and fractured. The garnets also contain inclusions of tridymite. Electron microprobe analyses of the garnets reveal that they are almandinespessartine (48.0 and 47.9 mol.%, respectively), have an average composition of (Fe1.46Mn1.45Mg0.03 Ca0.10)(Al1.93Ti0.02)Si3.01O12 and are comparatively homogeneous in Fe and Mn concentrations from core to rim. Composited garnets from each sample site have δ18O values of 7.2 and 7.4%. The associated quartz (after tridymite) has δ18O values of 17.4 and 17.6%, values indicative of reaction with later, low-temperature water. Unaltered tridymite from higher in the stratigraphic section has a δ18O of 11.1% which, when coupled with the garnet δ18O values in a quartz-garnet fractionation equation, indicates isotopic equilibration (vapour-phase crystallization) at temperatures of ~600°C. This high-temperature mineralization, formed during cooling of the tuffs, is distinct from the later and commonly recognized low-temperature stage (generally 50-70ºC) of calcite, quartz and opal secondary mineralization, formed from downward-percolating meteoric water, that locally coats fracture footwalls and lithophysal floors.

Data release of Geologic Map of the Upper Arkansas River Valley Region, North-Central, Colorado

This 1:50,000-scale geologic map represents a compilation of the most recent geologic studies of the upper Arkansas River valley, between Leadville and Salida, Colorado. The valley is structurally controlled by an extensional fault system that forms part of the prominent northern Rio Grande rift, an intra-continental region of crustal extension. This work also incorporates new detailed geologic mapping of poorly understood areas within the map area and reinterprets previously studied areas, aided by lidar data that covers 59 percent of the map area. The mapped region extends into the Proterozoic metamorphic and intrusive rocks in the Sawatch Range west of the valley and the Mosquito Range to the east. Paleozoic rocks are preserved along the crest of the Mosquito Range, but most of them have been eroded from the Sawatch Range. Numerous new isotopic ages (U-Pb zircon ages for the intrusive Proterozoic and some Tertiary rocks adjacent to the valley and 40Ar/39Ar ages for the Late Cretaceous to Oligocene intrusive and extrusive rocks) better constrain the timing of both Proterozoic and Late Cretaceous to early Tertiary intrusive events. The U-Pb ages document widespread ~1,440-Ma granitic plutonism north of Buena Vista that produced batholiths that intruded an older suite of ~1,760-Ma metamorphic rocks and ~1,700-Ma plutonic rocks. As a result of extension during the Neogene and possibly latest Paleogene, the graben underlying the valley is filled with thick basin-fill deposits (Dry Union Formation and older sediments), which occupy two sub-basins, separated by a bedrock high near the small town of Granite. The Dry Union Formation has undergone deep erosion since the late Miocene or early Pliocene. During the Pleistocene, ongoing steam incision by the Arkansas River and its major tributaries has been interrupted by periodic aggradation. From Leadville south to Salida as many as 7 mapped alluvial depositional units, which range in age from early to late Pleistocene, record periodic aggradational events along these streams that are commonly associated with deposition of glacial outwash or bouldery glacial-flood deposits. Many previously unrecognized Neogene and Quaternary faults, some of the latter with possible Holocene displacement, have been identified on lidar imagery. This imagery has also permitted more accurate remapping of glacial, fluvial, and mass-movement deposits and has aided in the determination of their relative ages. Recently published 10Be cosmogenic surface-exposure ages, coupled with new geologic mapping, have revealed the timing and rates of late Pleistocene deglaciation. Glacial dams that impounded the Arkansas River at Clear Creek and possibly at Pine Creek failed at least 3 times during the middle and late Pleistocene, resulting in catastrophic floods and deposition of enormous boulders and bouldery alluvium downstream; at least two failures occurred during the late Pleistocene during the Pinedale glaciation.

UNSATURATED ZONE CALCITE 813C EVIDENCE OF SOUTHERN NEVADA CLIMATES DURING THE PAST 9 MILLION YEARS

Yucca Mountain, Nevada, is presently the object of intense study as a potential permanent repository for the Nations high-level radioactive wastes. The mountain consists of a thick sequence of volcanic tuffs in which the depth to the water table ranges from 500 to 700 meters below the land surface. This thick unsaturated zone (UZ), which would host the projected repository, coupled with the present-day arid to semi-arid environment, is considered a positive argument for the site. Evaluation of the site includes defining the relationship between climate variability, as the input function or driver of site- and regional-scale ground-water flow, and the possible transport and release of radionuclides. Secondary calcite and opal have been deposited in the UZ by meteoric waters that infiltrated through overlying soils and percolated through the tuffs. The oxygen isotopic composition ({delta}{sup 18}O values) of these minerals reflect contemporaneous meteoric waters and the {delta}{sup 13}C values reflect soil organic matter, and hence the resident plant community, at the time of infiltration (Whelan et al., 1994). Recent U/Pb age determinations of opal in these occurrences allows the {delta}{sup 13}C values of associated calcite to be used to reconstruct general climate variations during the past 9 M.y.