Richard J. Moscati

• Isotope Geology at United States Geological Survey

A broad study of zircons from plutonic rocks of the Sawatch and Mosquito ranges of west-central Colorado (U.S.A.) was undertaken to significantly refine the magmatic chronology and chemistry of this under-studied region of the Colorado province. This region was chosen because it lies just to the north of the suspected arc-related Gunnison-Salida vo...

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 tuf...

As part of the Geologic Waste Management Facility feasibility study, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) is evaluating the suitability of the Chalk River Laboratories (CRL) site in Ontario, situated in crystalline rock of the southwestern Grenville Province, for the possible development of an underground repository for low- and intermediate-level n...

The Pea Ridge iron oxide-apatite (IOA) deposit is one of the major rhyolite-hosted magnetite deposits of the St. Francois Mountains terrane, which is located within the Mesoproterozoic (1.5–1.3 Ga) Granite-Rhyolite province in the U.S. Midcontinent. Precise and accurate determination of the timing and duration of ore-forming processes in this depos...

This paper investigates applicability of cassiterite to dating ore deposits in a wide age range. We report in situ LA-ICPMS U-Pb and Pb-Pb dating results (n = 15) of cassiterite from six ore deposits in Russia ranging in age from ~1.85 Ga to 93 Ma. The two oldest deposits dated at ~1.83–1.86 Ga are rare metal Vishnyakovskoe located in the East Saya...

U-Pb dating of cassiterite and zircon from the Yazov granite (Transbaikalia region, Eastern Siberia, Russia) and cassiterite from spatially associated tin mineralization in the Tuyukan ore district in the Tonod uplift was conducted using in situ laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. These analyses allow comparison of isotopic...

Textural, geochronological, and geochemical data are presented here for cassiterite from the giant (149.7 million tonnes [Mt]) Mesoproterozoic Sullivan Pb-Zn-Ag deposit, which has been subjected to several tectonothermal events. These data provide constraints on the age and origin of the tin concentrations and new insights into related base metal m...

The Abu Dabbab rare-metal granite in the Eastern Desert of Egypt is a highly-evolved alkali-feldspar granite with transitional magmatic-hydrothermal features. Extreme geochemical fractionation and the associated significant TaSn resource make the Abu Dabbab intrusion an important feature in the metallogenic evolution of the Arabian-Nubian shield. U...

The Cornwall and Devon vein- and greisen-type copper and tin deposits of southwest England are spatially and genetically related to shallow-seated granitic intrusions. These late Variscan intrusions, collectively known as the Cornubian Batholith, extend over 200 km and form a continuous granitic spine from the Isles of Scilly Granite in the west to...

Yellowstone Lake is one of the most active hydrothermal areas in Yellowstone with several large hydrothermal explosion craters and hundreds of active and currently inactive sublacustrine hydrothermal vents. As part of the Hydrothermal Dynamics of Yellowstone Lake (HD-YLAKE) project, we studied hydrothermal alteration in piston and gravity cores fro...

A Bacia de Castro, localizada no estado do Paraná, apresenta preenchimento vulcanossedimentar de idade Ediacarana. Nessa bacia são conhecidos depósitos de ouro, interpretados como de origem epitermal do tipo low-sulfidation e ocorrências de hematita de origem hidrotermal, sendo algumas dessas ocorrências lavradas de forma intermitente. As ocorrênci...

New igneous and detrital zircon laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS) U-Pb geochronology and Lu-Hf isotopic data are presented for the Mesoproterozoic Kgwebe Formation and the unconformably overlying Ghanzi Group in northwestern Botswana. The Makgabana Hills porphyritic rhyolite flow from the Ghanzi area yielded a U...

Cassiterite (SnO2), a main ore mineral in tin deposits, is suitable for U–Pb isotopic dating because of its relatively high U/Pb ratios and typically low common Pb. We report a LA-ICPMS analytical procedure for U–Pb dating of this mineral with no need for an independently dated matrix-matched cassiterite standard. LA-ICPMS U-Th-Pb data were acquire...

Precise and accurate dating of cassiterite (SnO 2) is needed for direct age determinations of this main ore mineral in tin deposits. Traditional approaches in LA-ICPMS U-Pb dating utilize matrix-matched standards that have been previously precisely dated by a reliable technique (e.g., ID-TIMS). Because cassiterite is extremely difficult to digest c...

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Proterozoic garnet–bearing quartzites near Howard, CO (northern Sangre de Cristo Range) have been previously recognized on geologic maps and from field descriptions. Multiple lines of physical and geochemical evidence now suggest that some of these rocks may be metarhyolites. One sample is from a buff-white to tan-colored, layered rock with abundan...

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As a consequence of contemporary or longer term (since 15 ka) climate warming, gas hydrates in some settings may presently be dissociating and releasing methane and other gases to the ocean–atmosphere system. A key challenge in assessing the impact of dissociating gas hydrates on global atmospheric methane is the lack of a technique able to disting...

Yucca Mountain, a site in southwest Nevada, has been proposed for a deep underground radioactive waste repository. An extensive database of geochemical and isotopic characteristics has been established for pore waters and gases from the unsaturated zone, perched water, and saturated zone waters in the Yucca Mountain area. The development of this da...

Ore formation at the Spar Lake red bed-associated strata-bound Cu deposit took place across a mixing and reaction zone between a hot oxidized metals-transporting brine and a reservoir of "sour" (H 2S-bearing) natural gas trapped in the host sandstones. Fluid inclusion volatile analyses have very high CH 4 concentrations (≥1 mol % in most samples),...

Secondary calcite, silica and minor amounts of fluorite deposited in fractures and cavities record the chemistry, temperatures, and timing of past fluid movement in the unsaturated zone at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the proposed site of a high-level radioactive waste repository. The distribution and geochemistry of these deposits are consistent with l...

Isotopic and chemical compositions were analyzed in modern precipitation samples collected in 2006-08 at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, site of the proposed high-level radioactive waste repository. Precipitation is the major source of infiltration to the unsaturated zone and of recharge to the saturated zone at Yucca Mountain. On February 25, 2005, seepag...

Eighteen SHRIMP U-Pb zircon ages were determined on various samples of the Paleoproterozoic metamorphic basement of the central Colorado Front Range. Ages were obtained from 6 migmatites, including 2 melt phases, one selvage, and three whole-rocks in order to delineate the timing of migmatite formation as well as ages of protoliths. Also analyzed w...

Yucca Mountain, a ridge of shallowly dipping, Miocene-age volcanic rocks in southwest Nevada, is the proposed site for a nuclear waste repository to be constructed in the 500- to 700-m-thick unsaturated zone (UZ). At the proposed repository, the 300-m-thick Topopah Spring Tuff welded unit (TSw) is overlain by approximately 30 m of nonwelded tuffs (...

X-ray microfluorescence (XRMF) spectrometry is a rapid, accurate technique to map element abundances of rock surfaces (such as thin-section billets, the block remaining when a thin section is prepared). Scanning a specimen with a collimated primary X-ray beam (100 μm diameter) generates characteristic secondary X-rays that yield the relative chemic...

Precipitation was collected between 1991 and 1997 at 41 locations within and adjacent to parts of the Great Basin lying in California, Oregon, Nevada, and Utah. These samples were analyzed for their deuterium (deltaD) and oxygen-18 (delta18O) contents. Separate collections were made of summer and winter season precipitation at stations ranging in e...

About 20 vapor-phase garnets were studied in two samples of the Topopah Spring Tuff from Yucca Mountain, in southern Nevada. The Miocene-age Topopah Spring Tuff is a 350-m-thick, devitrified, moderately to densely welded ash flow that is compositionally zoned from high-silica rhyolite to quartz latite. During cooling of the tuff, escaping vapor pro...

Yucca Mountain, Nevada, is presently the object of intense study as a potential permanent repository for the Nation`s high-level radioactive wastes. The mountain consists of a thick sequence of volcanic tuffs within which the depth to water table ranges from 500 to 700 meters below the land surface. This thick unsaturated zone (UZ), which would hos...

Tunneling of the Exploratory Studies Facility has offered the opportunity to sample and examine occurrences of secondary mineralization found in the unsaturated-zone tuffs of Yucca Mountain, nevada. Petrographic and paragenetic analyses, calcite and silica-phase stable isotopic analyses, and preliminary strontium tracer isotope and radiocarbon age...

The accuracy of predictions of the hydrologic response of Yucca Mountain to future climate depends largely on how well relations between past climate and hydrology can be resolved. To advance this reconstruction, secondary minerals in and near Yucca Mountain, deposited by ground waters that originated both as surficial recharge at Yucca Mountain an...

Secondary carbonates occurring within the soils, faults, and subsurface fractures of Yucca Mountain contain some of the best available records of paleoclimate and palehydrology for the potential radioactive waste repository site. This article discusses conceptual and analytical advances being made with regard to the interpretation of stable isotope...

Most of our knowledge about geothermal gradients in continental-rift zones has been determined indirectly from heat-transfer calculations based on surface heat flow, inferred heat production, inferred heat-transfer mechanisms, etc. We document a petrologically determined crustal geotherm from a continental-rift environment in the Ross Sea and adjac...