Volume 18 (2012): Issue 2 (August 2012)

Well developed NE-SW trending corridors of outwash in NE Poland are associated with a series of lakes with a similar direction of elongation. The glaciofluvial corridor under study consists of parallel ridges with associated channels and kames. The deposits are flanked by till and hummocky terrain. The gravel ridges are composed of sand and gravel deposits that are cross-stratified, massive or graded, and that contain cut-and-fill structures and large intra-clasts of sand and gravel. Locally the deposits show normal faults. The succession of one of the ridges is interpreted to reflect the infilling of a braided channel in a crevasse. Sedimentation took place in some phases when the ice-sheet regime changed from active to stagnant. Sandy-gravel ridges occur within this complex perpendicular to the Weichselian ice-sheet margin.

The corridor is interpreted as an interlobate area in the zone between the Warmia and Mazury ice lobes. The braided-channel deposits are not comparable to typical Polish sandurs. The lithofacies characteristics show higher energy conditions, and the channels are deeper than those typical of Pleistocene lowland sandurs. The sand and gravel ridges are interpreted as interlobate eskers.

The ammonites Lewesiceras peramplum Mantell and ?Lewesiceras sp. are reported from the Upper Cretaceous in the Nysa Kłodzka Graben; they date from the Middle Turonian and ?Coniacian, respectively. The Middle Turonian limestones of the Stara Bystrzyca quarry contain an abundant assemblage of inoceramids (Inoceramus cuvieri Sowerby and I. lamarcki Parkinson) and other bivalves, including oysters, as well as brachiopods and trace fossils. Micropalaeontological data show the presence of foraminifers and siliceous sponge spiculae, bryozoans, ostracods and fragments of bivalves and gastropods. The Middle Turonian calcareous deposits belongs to the upper part of the Inoceramus lamarcki Zone (late Middle Turonian) and were deposited on a shallow, subtidal offshore shelf. They overlie the Middle Turonian Bystrzyca and Długopole Sandstones, which represent foreshore-shoreface delta deposits. The fossil assemblage suggests a moderate- to low-energy, normal-salinity environment with occasionally an oxygen deficit.

A specimen of the Sahara 02500 ordinary chondrite contains shock-produced veins consisting of recrystallised fine-grained pyroxenes that include small droplets of Ni-rich metal. Non-melted olivines and pyroxenes show planar deformations filled by shock-melted and -polluted metal and troilite. Shock-melted feldspathic glass is present close to the shock veins. Geothermometric estimations indicate that the meteorite locally experienced moderate shock metamorphism with a minimum local peak temperature above 1400°C, resulting in partial melting of Ca-poor pyroxene and full melting of feldspars, metal and sulphides. The mineral assemblage in the shock veins suggests a pressure during melt recrystallisation below 10 GPa.