January-February GSA Bulletin media ...( Boulder CO USA - BULLETIN papers e...)

Boulder, CO, USA - BULLETIN papers examine carbon-14 dating of marine mud fossils in Ireland that suggests high ice-sheet sensitivity to small climate changes; formation of Valles Marineris, Mars; a buried fossil forest in the Gold Hill Loess, Alaska; a 20-meter-high salt pillar near the Dead Sea; how shrimp affect groundwater flow in the Biscayne aquifer; a possible emerging natural gas play in the Appalachian Basin; and banded iron formations exposed by the Agouron South African Drilling Project.

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Age, provenance, and tectonic setting of Paleoproterozoic quartzite successions in the southwestern United States

James V. Jones III et al., Department of Geological Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA. Pages 247-264.

Thick (greater than 2 km), compositionally pure successions of ultramature quartz sandstone (i.e., orthoquartzite) occur among 1.8-1.6 billion year old (Ga, or Giga annum) rock exposures throughout North America and elsewhere around the world. These distinctive successions have potential to elucidate numerous aspects of Proterozoic (2.5-0.5 Ga) earth systems. In this study by Jones et al., new field research in the southwestern United States combined with analytical work involving multiple-age dating techniques helps to constrain deposition and deformation of quartzites exposed in southern Colo
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