The geochemical behaviors of Be and Al in ocean waters have been successfully studied in recent years using natural, cosmogenic, radioactive¹⁰Be and²⁶Al as tracers. The present day dissolved concentrations and distribution of the stable and radioactive isotopes of Be and Al in ocean waters have revealed their short residence times and appreciable effects of exchange fluxes at the coastal and ocean-sediment interfaces. It follows that concentrations of these particle-active elements must have varied in the past with temporal changes in climate, biological productivity and aeolian flux of continental detritus to the oceans. We therefore investigated the feasibility of extending the measurements of Be and Al isotope concentrations in marine systems to the 10³–10⁶ y BP time scale. We report here the discovery of significant amounts of intrinsic Be and Al in marine foraminiferal calcite and coral aragonite, and of Al in opal (radiolarians) and aragonite (coral), which makes it possible to determine¹⁰Be/Be and²⁶Al/Al in oceans in the past. We also report measured¹⁰Be/⁹Be in foraminiferal calcite in Pacific Ocean cores, which reveal that the concentrations and ratios of the stable and cosmogenic isotopes of Be and Al have varied significantly in the past 30 ky. The implications of these results are discussed.

We report here an unusually high concentration of iridium in some alkali basalts and alkaline rocks of Deccan region having an age of about 65Ma, similar to the age of the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. The alkali basalts of Anjar, in the western periphery of Deccan province, have iridium concentration as high as 178pg/g whereas the alkaline rocks and basalts associated with the Amba Dongar carbonatite complex have concentrations ranging between 8 and 80 pg/g. Some of these values are more than an order of magnitude higher than the concentration in the tholeiitic basalts of Deccan, indicating the significance of alkaline magmatism in the iridium inventory at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. Despite higher concentration, their contribution to the global inventory of iridium in the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary clays remains small. The concentration of iridium in fluorites from Amba Dongar was found to be <30 pg/g indicating that iridium is not incorporated during their formation in hydrothermal activity.

Chemical analysis of nine Deccan flow basalts at Anjar, Kutch, western India, indicates that all, except the uppermost flow F-9, are alkaline. In their major and trace element composition, the alkali basalts resemble Ocean island basalts (OIB). Similarities of many diagnostic trace element ratios (e.g. Sm/Nd, Ba/Nb,Y/Nb and Zr/Nb) are similar to those found in the Réunion Island basalts. The uppermost basalt is tholeiitic and chemically resembles the least contaminated Deccan basalt (Ambenali type). The Anjar basalts have iridium concentration ranging between 2 and 178 pg/g. Some of these values are higher by about an order of magnitude compared to the Ir concentration in other basalts of the Deccan. A synthesis of chemical, palaeomagnetic and geochronologic data enables us to construct a chemical and magnetic stratigraphy for these flows.

The three flows below the iridium enriched intertrappean bed (IT III) show normal magnetic polarity whereas all except one of the upper basalts show reversed magnetic polarity. The sequence seems to have started in polarity zones 31N and probably continued up to 28R or 27R. The results presented here support the view that Deccan volcanism in Kutch occurred on a time span of a few million years.

The paper describes the variation pattern of magnetic susceptibility of Lameta sediments and isotopic variation of organic¹³C from Chui Hill, Bergi, Kholdoda, Pisdura and Girad. The susceptibility pattern and a negative carbon isotopic anomaly allows fixation of the K/T boundary at these localities and they differ in these aspects from the inter-trappean sediments at Anjar.

Paleomagnetic measurements of the Anjar sediment and the overlying basalt flow demonstrate reversed polarity. The Lameta sediments with dinosaur nests at Kheda and the overlying intertrappean sediments are of normal polarity.

The clay layers at Anjar, associated closely with Ir-enrichments, are strongly leached, rhyolitic bentonites containing low-quartz paramorphs after high-quartz with glass inclusions.

It is concluded, that the inter-trappean lake deposits at Anjar were deposited in the early part of magnetochron 29R and are unrelated to the K/T boundary.

The eastern Dharwar Craton of southern India includes at least three ∼ 2700Ma supracrustal belts (schist belts) which have mesothermal, quartz-carbonate vein gold mineralization emplaced within the sheared metabasalts. In the Hutti and the Kolar schist belts, the host rocks are amphibolites and the ore veins have been flanked by only a thin zone of biotitic alteration; in the Ramagiri belt, however, the host rocks to the veins have been affected by more extensive but lower temperature alteration by fluids. The rare earth element (REE) geochemistry of the host metabasalts, alteration zones, ore veins and the bulk sulfides separated from the ore veins and the alteration zones suggest that

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Because alteration and mineralization involved addition of REE, more LREE compared to HREE, the fluids could be of higher temperature origin. The initial Nd isotope ratios in the host rocks (ε_Nd calculated at 2700 Ma) showed a large variation (+8 to -4) and a deep crustal source for the fluid REE seems likely. A crustal source for Pb and Os in the ore samples of Kolar belt has previously been suggested (Krogstadet al 1995; Walkeret al 1989). Such a source for ore fluids is consistent with a late Archean (2500Ma) accretionary origin for the terrains of the eastern Dharwar Craton.

The small leucogranite plutons occurring in linear belts in the Higher Himalayas have formed due to post-collision partial melting within the Himalayan crust. Several studies have documented that the Sr isotopic ratios in the granite bodies show chaotic variation and meaningful Rb-Sr isochron ages are difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. In tectonically overthickened crust, the depth-temperature profile (geotherm) remains strongly transient for the first tens of millions of years. It is proposed here that the intersecting relations between the transient geotherms and activity-dependent solidus/melting curves may generate small pods of magma at different depths and at different times. Each of these pods will have its unique Sr isotopic ratios. Coalescence of these small pods of magma without any effective homogenization due to deformation-induced fast segregation, ascent and emplacement may lead to pluton-wide extreme heterogeneity in Sr isotopic ratios.

The devastating earthquake (mb = 6.6) at Chamoli, Garhwal Himalaya, which occurred in the morning hours on 29th March 1999, was recorded on Delhi Strong Motion Accelerograph (DSMA) Network operated by the Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee. In this paper the source parameters of this event calculated from the Strong Motion Data are presented. The seismic moment for this event has been found to be of the order of 10²⁵ dyne.cm and the moment magnitude has been calculated in the range of 6.53–6.69 at different stations. The stress drop and source radius for the earthquake are also calculated.

The Lhomme’s model (1988a), that extended Penmann's formulae to a multi-layer model, is redefined as a function of micrometeorological and physiological profiles of crop canopy. The sources and sinks of sensible and latent heat fluxes are assumed to lie on a fictitious plane called zero-displacement plane. Algorithms are given to compute sensible and latent heat flux densities. Performance of the algorithms is compared with that of earlier algorithms.