Origin Of Boulders Research Articles

The origin of boulders in the Neoproterozoic of Eastern Sayan Ranges, south‐west Siberia: Glacial transport versus winnowed concretions

AbstractThe Cryogenian geological record of Siberia is scarce and ambiguous. Late Neoproterozoic strata of presumed glaciogenic origin of the Marnya Formation, Oselok Group cropping out along the Uda River in the Eastern Sayan Ranges, south‐western Siberia has received considerable attention due to the presence of at least three distinctive diamictite units. The lower diamictite unit (Karapchetui Member) is in subvertical contact (previously interpreted as a glacial valley) with stratigraphically older strata of the Tagul and Ipsit formations of the Karagas Group, and is represented by a wedge‐shaped unit of breccia that hosts numerous ellipsoidal sandstone bodies (previously thought to be boulders). The boulders are here reinterpreted as early diagenetic quartz and feldspar‐cemented sandstone concretions exhumed and redeposited from the Ipsit Formation when the latter was still uncemented and easily erodible. Tectonic compression, reverse faulting and localised continuous syndepositional uplift led to exhumation of the concretions, whereas subsequent extension, reactivation of the fault and ‘negative inversion’ of the basin produced accommodation space for redeposition of the exhumed concretions. In the process of redeposition, exfoliating concretions produced abundant debris that provided clasts for the breccia deposit. The Karapchetui diamictite, therefore, can serve as a sedimentary archive of late Neoproterozoic tectonic activity at the south‐western margin of the Siberian Craton.

Size-frequency statistics of boulders on global surface of asteroid 25143 Itokawa

Abstract The surface of asteroid 25143 Itokawa is covered with numerous boulders although gravity is very small compared with that of other asteroids previously observed from spacecraft. Here we report the size-frequency statistics of boulders on the entire surface of Itokawa based on high-resolution images (1 pixel ≈0.4 m) obtained by the Hayabusa spacecraft. There are 373 boulders larger than 5 m in mean horizontal dimension on the entire surface—0.393 km2—and the number density is nearly 103/km2. The cumulative boulder size distribution on the entire surface has a power-index of −3.1 ± 0.1. For the east and west sides and the head and body portions of Itokawa, the power-index of the size distributions and the number densities of boulders of these areas are thought to be similar from the statistical point of view. A global mapping of boulders shows that there is no apparent correlation in the locations of boulders and craters. The ratio of the total volume of the boulders to the total excavated volume of the craters on Itokawa is ≈25% when only craters larger than 50 m in mean diameter are considered, and this ratio is extremely larger than that on Eros and the Moon, respectively. The origin of boulders on the surface of Itokawa was examined quantitatively by calculating the number of boulders and the size of the largest boulder using a model based on impact cratering experiments. The result indicated that the boulders on the surface of Itokawa cannot solely be the product of craters. Our results suggest that the boulders originated from the disruption of the larger parent body of Itokawa, as has been described in previous papers (Fujiwata et al., Science, 312, 1330–1334, 2006; Saito et al., Science, 312, 1341–1344, 2006).

Short Paper: The age and origin of boulders in the Highland Border Complex: constraints on terrane movements

Mid-Proterozoic Rb-Sr muscovite ages on metasedimentary boulders within the Highland Border Complex, together with Archean T DM ages on the same clasts, provide constraints on terrane movements in the Scottish Caledonides. An origin for these clasts from cratonic North America is ruled out. Combined radiometric age, T DM , and fauna1 province studies on basement materials provide a potentially productive method of determining the provenance of terranes.