This is part 9 of the AusIMM webinar on the structural geology of North America. Link to Webinar 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/
13. Earth Seismic tomography at 200 km depth
First up, can you see, or can you not see, the structures??? If you can’t see them, message me as to which ones you can’t see and why you believe they don’t exist! Is it because they are not clear enough or is it because of some prejudice, or currently accepted teaching. A challenge! Geoscientists are ardent turf protectors and notoriously conservative 🙂 🙂 .
I’m a great believer in disruptive innovation!
Disruptive innovation refers to innovations and technologies that make expensive or sophisticated products and services accessible and more affordable to a broader market. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation#/media/File:Disruptivetechnology.png ) .
What Are the Key Requirements for Disruptive Innovation?
To be a successful disruptor, the network of partners—suppliers, contractors, and distributors—must also benefit from the new business model. Certain core requirements include having enabling technology, an innovative business model, and a coherent value network where upstream and downstream business partners benefit from a successful disruption (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation#/media/File:Disruptivetechnology.png ) .
This is what it looks like! I often feel like the surfer – not sure of the next wave and always over the precipice – as I said – exciting!!
Back to the story and figure 49 !
To try and grasp the fact that these structures are Earth-scale (they extend over the whole earth) I went back to the Earth seismic tomography at 200 km depth. The original plan that was enhanced was the Earth Tomography plan lower-right side, a very broad scale colour contour plan. https://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~smachine/cgi/index.php?page=mean_maps.
The WNW structures in the centre-right extend from Southeast Asia through to the top-left, west of Europe, and continue (around the back) through to south of South America on the bottom-left side.
The other main structures that can be seen is a broad belt of strong NE and NNE structures that trend from around Fiji, in the bottom-left, up through North America and up into Northern Europe in the top-centre. These cut straight across all the oceans and continents? How can this happen at 200 km depth in the mobile mantle??
The other major features that can be seen are a series of discrete arcs trending about 350°. The most western arc that starts from the top-left hand of the plan is what I’ve called the 4 billion year old immovable barrier. This has the expanding Pacific Plate on the west side and the relatively immobile North and South American Continental Plates on the east side.
There are several of these arcs. One goes through the Indian Ocean and another one trending through SE Asia and Australia. They cut all structures suggesting later formation.
Do the diamond mines follow structures on this Earth-wide scale? If they do then these structures form the basis for an excellent exploration targeting tool!
14. Earth seismic tomography at 200 km depth, correlation to diamond occurrence.
It can be seen that the diamond mines follow large rings in North America, South America and Africa. They always lie in the dark areas between, or within, the rings. They also follow the large northerly trending arcs and follow strong EW and NNW linear structures.
The EW structures are very interesting because all of the inner rocky planets, Mercury, Venus and Mars have these EW structures that girdle the whole planet. They suggest brittle ripping and are probably related to the slower spin of the equator compared to the poles?
All of the other inner planets are rigid and have been rigid since their beginning.
My research shows that the Earth is also rigid under Australia, Africa, South America, North America, Scandinavia and China which suggests that nearly all of Earth has been rigid for its whole evolution.
There is no detailed structural geology map of the whole earth!
The little house up on the top-left hand side of the image shows what I am trying to achieve with this constructive-disruptive research. I am building a framework of structural geology for the whole Earth. Currently most geological research only occurs in isolated locations in different continents and only occasionally on a continental scale. We now have a tool to do better than this!
The only Earth wide research that is currently done in tomography and various other data sources are 3-D models which are not real structural geology models. There is a world of difference between these two approaches.
The current 3-D models only model differences in temperature, gravity, magnetics or seismic speed as colour contours. Exactly the same lithology at different temperatures are modeled as different states of material. The models produced are thus unrelated to the actual lithologies or geological structure. Currently if it is a higher temperature it is modeled as being more ductile (i.e. the mobile mantle). The structural geology suggests this is not the case as the earth-scale structures cut straight through this mobile mantle!
By enhancing the data so that structural geology is seen enables proper structural geological research of the Earth, perhaps for the first time. This is new information and brings with it several orders of magnitude more detailed geology which should be more applicable to the Earth’s formation than the current colour contour information, even if this is presented in pseudo 3D models. It is taking many of my respected geoscientist colleagues a while to realise this paradigm change ? It is exciting research – to me anyway 🙂
This figure shows how the diamond mines relate to the rings, Diamond Lines, other structures and to the continents.
This plan shows the continents and linears with the diamond mines overlaid. In all areas the best diamond mines were located on the junction of major 5,000 km rings and small 100-1,000 km rings. The prime locations in these areas is where the EW and diamond line linears cut the rings.
In each continent the diamond mines have also been shown to be associated with EW, NNE and WNW linears and the biggest mines are on the approximately NNW diamond lines.
I have highlighted these areas with the orange targets. These target areas could be refined if the rings were also incorporated in the targeting exercise.
So, these areas are prime worldwide exploration targeting areas for diamonds. Follow the rings around until you intercept all the rings or linears. Then look for and target the diamond indicators on the local scale. Go for it all you diamond explorers!
15. Earth Seismic tomography at 200 km depth, correlation to metal mines
This figure shows the metal mines plus the diamond mines, and how they relate to the ring structures on earth.
The metal mines relate to the rims of large rings in China, Africa, South America and North America. This is a consistent theme over the earth and suggests the rings are instrumental in the fluid pathways of mineralisation and maybe sometimes in the emplacement of the mineral itself.
So we have clearly seen that at 200 km depth there are worldwide brittle ring and linear structures. The mineralisation preferentially follows them. There is no mobile mantle anywhere on Earth at 200 km depth.
The hypotheses of the mobile mantle and plate tectonics needs revision!
Have a prosperous 2022!
Happy hunting for diamonds worldwide! Share this post with your colleagues and get back to me with comments!
Bob Watchorn
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