The video link for the AusIMM webinar is below. Look at this video – it will open your eyes to geology most geoscientists only dream about :)!
https://www.ausimm.com/videos/community-event/south-west-wageoscience-society—digital-tech-talk-new-discoveries-in-the-structural-geology-mineralization–exploration-targeting-of-north-america/
6. Seismic Tomography
We will now look at North American seismic tomography (Clouzet et. al., 2008) from 60 to 300 km depth. We will only be enhancing the 60 and 300 km depth plans.
These Clouzet tomography plans are very broad-scale and non-detailed. Currently geoscientists cannot get any structural geology detail out of these plans. No detailed structural geology seismic tomography plans of North America have appeared on the internet – apart from mine? They may appear in obscure academic papers but what use is that?
7. Seismic tomography 60 km depth
This is a seismic tomography plan at 60 km depth that I enhanced about three years ago and named the ring structures that I could see. I will use these ring structure names during this webinar.
Even though it was a very quick enhancement exercise the rings that I plotted show no correlation with the surface geology (lower-left inset).
This is the same situation that we have seen with the Landsat and gravity plans.
This plan has almost no enhancement but immediately half of the 3,000 km diameter Manitoba ring stands out! This ring is almost the same dimensions as the Nebraska ring in the gravity but it is located about 1,000 km north. Is it the same ring?
If it is the same ring, none of the other rings have moved, so I suspect that it is a separate ring. The only geological surface that this ring could have moved along is the MOHO. For this 1,000 km of movement in only 60 km depth to occur then the Moho would be an extreme dislocation plane between the crust and the lithosphere?
In my research (South America Figure 22 Video link https://www.ausimm.com/videos/community-event/south-west-wa-branchgeoscience-society—digital-tech-talk—south-american-structural-geology/ ) I haven’t seen evidence of this.
This is the same image, enhanced slightly more, that shows the smaller rings within and around the larger rings. This common ring association is also seen on the moon. It is caused by the fracturing associated with the large impact allowing more abundant lava flows from the smaller impacts, located in the most fractured rim and centre of the earlier large impacts. This then is seen as perturbations in the seismic tomography plans and sections.
This figure shows the nickel mines in North America and their association with NW linears and the major Earth Girdling NW trending spiral linear structure seen in the lower-right inset.
In my African webinar (video link https://www.ausimm.com/videos/community-event/south-west-wa-branchgeosoc—seismic-tomography-journey-to-the-centre-of-the-earth/ ) I made note of this Earth Girdling structure that trends from the central Pacific Tonga Trench, through SE Asia, Himalayas, and Europe to Northern Canada. It is the Earth’s largest structure.
Tim O’Driscoll was the first to see these huge linear structures that spiraled around Earth and called them Tethyn Spirals. He was 60 years ahead of his time and got much criticism and ridicule. Now that those structures can be seen maybe it’s time to re-visit our paradigms on Earth’s formation.
The nickel mines follow this structure. I believe the structure would be sub-vertical with such a huge 30,000 km length. I suggest that most of the nickel mines on Earth are related to magma following mineralisation pathways that come up from the core. Nickel mines are generally associated with ultra-mafic lavas from the central mantle. Only Sudbury in Canada appears to be associated with an impact structure and this may be remobilised Nickel..
So, a good nickel exploration targeting exercise would be to follow this NW structure around the earth to where it intersects rings. Then apply this targeting criteria to your local area using local WNW linears and local targeting criteria.
Will now look at the uranium mines’ association with ring and linear structures in seismic tomography at 60 km depth.
Uranium mines are still associated with the two major (1,000 km diameter) rings in Nevada and Utah. These rings correlate the rings seen in Landsat at the surface. The inset at lower-right shows that not only are the uranium mines associated with these rings but the huge Butte, Carlin and Bingham Canyon copper/gold mines are also associated with them.
This figure shows the relationship of diamond mines to seismic tomography at 60 km depth.
This image was enhanced to highlight linear structures and shows that at 60 km depth the Earth is quite brittle. The right-hand image is of my coffee table made of fractured indurated limestone (marble) and it looks similar to the Earth’s rheology at 60 km depth.
Although the Earth has been fractured at 60 km depth it can’t have moved very much, otherwise the large > 3.8 billion year old, Late Heavy Bombardment ring structures and linears would be totally distorted. They are in a relatively pristine configuration. The rings are still rings and the linears linear!
There is a strong correlation of the diamond mines, in particular, with linear structures at this depth. This is the same correlation that occurs at the surface in Landsat and in gravity. This suggests that these structures are vertical or sub-vertical and that they are primary fluid pathways.
We will look next at the Abitibi belt in Canada (within the white rectangle) and see in more detail how these mines are associated with the structural geology.
Look at my AusIMM North America video and make up your own mind on my seemingly outlandish, paradigm changing hypotheses 🙂
https://www.ausimm.com/videos/community-event/south-west-wageoscience-society—digital-tech-talk-new-discoveries-in-the-structural-geology-mineralization–exploration-targeting-of-north-america/
Happy hunting
Bob Watchorn