Micro-chronology and Evolution of the planet earth
Guest Editors
T. Itaya, K. Sajeev and C. Clark Special issue proposed to Gondwana Research
Dear Colleague,
We are pleased to announce that we are planning to assemble a special issue on the theme of "Micro-chronology and Evolution of the planet earth" in Gondwana Research (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/gr or http://www.gondwanaresearchonline.com). This special issue will assemble contributions that enhance our knowledge which also formulate guidelines for future investigations on the micro-chronology and its applications/implications on tectonics and the evolution of Earth.
It is our great pleasure to request an important contribution from you to the special issue on a topic related to the general scope of the special issue. As a renowned worker in the related field, your participation would be extremely valuable, and we are sure that your contribution would significantly aid in integrating our knowledge on the theme.
The special volume will base on the IMA Kobe 2006 session no.35: Micro-chronology of minerals (conveners C. M. Fanning, T. Itaya, S. Kelley & K. Suzuki). We encourage all the authors to submit a separate abstract to IMA and also to join the symposium (Please note the deadline for the IMA abstract submission is on 2006 Feb, 28th). The schedule of publishing special issue is as follows:
Deadline for manuscript submission to guest editors: July 23, 2006
Review, Revision and final acceptance: December 31, 2006
Publication of special issue: January, February or March 2007
According to the policy of the journal we must provide a full list of the contributors together with the tentative titles of the articles. We therefore request you to kindly respond to this circular as soon as possible with the tentative title and author(s) latest by 2006 Feb, 28th. We would greatly appreciate if you could send us a confirmation of your participation, even if you are unable to communicate the article details now.
We greatly appreciate your cooperation and valuable participation.
Sincerely yours
General scope of IMA session no.35 "Micro-chronology of minerals" and the special issue "Micro-chronology and Evolution of the planet earth" in Gondwana Research
The eventful 4.6 billion years has evolved the planet "Earth" to its present form. The first event after the formation of Earth was considered to be the magma ocean and the subsequent primitive ocean growth by catastrophic rainfall during the cooling of earth. The second major event is the origin of life birth and its evolution. The geomagnetism increasing due to the core condition change and the appearance of super continent followed by its breakup might contribute the evolution of life. In particular, the life with multi-cells appeared in late Proterozoic time when the formation of super continent, Rodinia and its breakup took place. The snowball earth event might also affect the evolution of life. The extinction events at PT and KT boundaries have made the appearances of dinosaurs and mammals, respectively. The hominids started on the rift region of eastern Africa where the "African super plume" ascended and broke up African continent. Our ancestors moved out from eastern Africa and have survived in new world under the drastic environmental changes.
The precise dating of these events including many important raveled and unraveled events is essential to understand the earth history of 4.6 billion years and to predict future events. The ages of each event have been recorded in small domain of minerals because the host lithologies have experienced multiple orogenic processes and the bulk rock and mineral analyses produce the discordant ages. This requires the sophisticated technique to date the micro space of minerals: the micro-chronology of minerals. The micro-chronological methods like SHRIMP (SIMS), CHIME (EMP U-Th-Pb), laser probe Ar-Ar etc have made it possible to date micrometer scale domains within the minerals. The laser abrasion ICP-MS technique is also applicable for the micro-chronology of minerals. Their further advanced technique is essential in earth science of 21 century. The conventional K-Ar and Ar-Ar methods and the Rb-Sr and Sm-Nd methods based on careful petrologic analyses could also contribute to understand the earth history. In particular, the methods with extremely low blank condition are still powerful technique.
The above mentioned conventional and advanced methods have their own limitation in their application to dating of events of earth history. We will focus the methodology of SHRIMP, CHIME, Laser probe Ar-Ar and LA-ICP-MS analyses, and their advantage and defect for geoscientists who want to use the methods to date their own sample from the geologic fields and extraterrestrial materials (meteorites).
In the IMA session of Micor-chronology of minerals we invite articles related to the tactical and application side of various geochronological methods. We are also expecting works related to the tectonic applications of micro-chronology in understanding earth history. Outstanding works contributed to the special session are also invited to the Gondwana Research special issue "Micro-chronology and Evolution of the planet earth". Scientists contributing to both IMA session and special issue must inform editors separately.
