The development of fluvial systems in East Asia is closely linked to the evolving topography following India-Eurasia collision. Despite this, the age of the Yangtze River system has been strongly debated, with estimates ranging from 40 to 45 Ma, to a more recent initiation around 2 Ma. Here, we present 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages from basalts interbedded with fluvial sediments from the lower reaches of the Yangtze together with detrital zircon U-Pb ages from sand grains within these sediments. We show that a river containing sediments indistinguishable from the modern river was established before ∼23 Ma. We argue that the connection through the Three Gorges must postdate 36.5 Ma because of evaporite and lacustrine sedimentation in the Jianghan Basin before that time. We propose that the present Yangtze River system formed in response to regional extension throughout eastern China, synchronous with the start of strike-slip tectonism and surface uplift in eastern Tibet and fed by strengthened rains caused by the newly intensified summer monsoon.Asian monsoon | drainage capture | provenance | Subei Basin | Yangtze gravel

Molecular dynamic simulations were performed to determine the elastic constants of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) hydrates at one hundred pressure–temperature data points, respectively. The conditions represent marine sediments and permafrost zones where gas hydrates occur. The shear modulus and Young’s modulus of the CO2 hydrate increase anomalously with increasing temperature, whereas those of the CH4 hydrate decrease regularly with increase in temperature. We ascribe this anomaly to the kinetic behavior of the linear CO2 molecule, especially those in the small cages. The cavity space of the cage limits free rotational motion of the CO2 molecule at low temperature. With increase in temperature, the CO2 molecule can rotate easily, and enhance the stability and rigidity of the CO2 hydrate. Our work provides a key database for the elastic properties of gas hydrates, and molecular insights into stability changes of CO2 hydrate from high temperature of ~5 °C to low decomposition temperature of ~−150 °C.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Carbon dioxide (CO) capture and storage (CCS) is an important climate change mitigation option along with improved energy efficiency, renewable energy, and nuclear energy. CO geosequestration, that is, to store CO under the subsurface of Earth, is feasible because the world's sedimentary basins have high capacity and are often located in the same region of the world as emission sources. How CO interacts with the connate water and minerals is the focus of this Account. There are four trapping mechanisms that keep CO in the pores of subsurface rocks: (1) structural trapping, (2) residual trapping, (3) dissolution trapping, and (4) mineral trapping. The first two are dominated by capillary action, where wettability controls CO and water two-phase flow in porous media. We review state-of-the-art studies on CO/water/mineral wettability, which was found to depend on pressure and temperature conditions, salt concentration in aqueous solutions, mineral surface chemistry, and geometry. We then review some recent advances in mineral trapping. First, we show that it is possible to reproduce the CO/water/mineral wettability at a wide range of pressures using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. As the pressure increases, CO gas transforms into a supercritical fluid or liquid at ∼7.4 MPa depending on the environmental temperature. This transition leads to a substantial decrease of the interfacial tension between CO and reservoir brine (or pure water). However, the wettability of CO/water/rock systems depends on the type of rock surface. Recently, we investigated the contact angle of CO/water/silica systems with two different silica surfaces using MD simulations. We found that contact angle increased with pressure for the hydrophobic (siloxane) surface while it was almost constant for the hydrophilic (silanol) surface, in excellent agreement with experimental observations. Furthermore, we found that the CO thin films at the CO-hydrophilic silica and CO-HO interfaces displayed a linear correlation, which can in turn explain the constant contact angle on the hydrophilic silica surface. In view of the literature and our study results, a few recommendations seem necessary to construct a molecular system suitable to study wettability with MD simulations. Future work should be conducted to determine the influence of brine salinity on the wettability of minerals with high cation exchange capacity. Mineral trapping is believed to be an extremely slow process, likely taking thousands of years. However, a recent pilot study demonstrated that CO mineralization occurs within 2 years in highly reactive basalt reservoirs. A first-principles MD study has also shown that carbonation reactions occur rapidly at the surface oxygen sites of a reactive mineral. We observed carbonate ions on both a newly cleaved quartz surface (without hydrolysis), and a basalt andesine surface after hydrolysis in a CO-rich environment. Future work should consider the influence of water, gas impurities, and mineral cation type on carbonation.

No abstract

Cenozoic sedimentary successions along the southern margin of the Tarim Basin, western China, reach up to 10 km in thickness. The two studied sections, the Yecheng and Aertashi, comprise c. 4.5 km and c. 7.0 km of clastic sedimentary rocks respectively. The base of the Yecheng section has been dated palaeomagnetically to be about 8 Ma. Age control of the Aertashi section is based on 87Sr/86Sr measurements (for the basal marine bed), together with magnetostratigraphy and regional stratigraphic correlation. The lower part of each section is mainly composed of fine-grained mudstone and fine sandstone, which makes up the Wuqian Group (Miocene). The palaeoenvironment is low-energy, meandering and braided streams. The middle part is composed of red mudstone, sandstone with thin conglomerate beds, which make up the Artux Formation (Pliocene). The palaeoenvironment is a distal- to mid-fan environment. The uppermost part of the section, known as the Xiyu Formation (Plio-Pleistocene), consists of cobble and boulder conglomerate intercalated with massive siltstone lenses, which formed as proximal alluvial fan and aeolian deposits. Neogene red beds passing upward into upward-coarsening conglomerate and debris-flow deposits record the change in palaeoslope related to uplift of the northern margin of Tibetan Plateau.The formation of aeolian dunes at c. 8 Ma, and underlying playa lake deposits (as at Aertashi), may indicate an arid, enclosed basin in the southern Tarim after this time. Sedimentological characteristics, together with grain size distribution and geochemistry of siltstone bands in the Xiyu and Artux Formations, point to an aeolian origin. This indicates that the Taklimakan Desert and the regional climate regime may have been fully developed by the Early Pliocene. The onset of aeolian sedimentation in the southern Tarim Basin coincided with uplift of the northern Tibetan Plateau, as inferred from the lithofacies change. Tibetan Plateau uplift resulted in the shift of sedimentary environments northwards into the southern Tarim Basin, and could well have triggered the onset of full aridity in the Taklimakan region as a whole.