New Books and Journal articles related to Lake Superior geology

This page is intended to provide the membership with a single source for information about new publications related to Lake Superior geology. Where possible we have included links to the relevant journals, whether or not you can access the PDFs will depend on whether or not you, or your institution, subscribes to the journal in question. If you cannot access the PDF then try contacting the authors directly.

If you are aware of any books or articles published in the last year or so please contact the ILSG Secretary to have them added to this page.

• Nic Swanson-Hysell's group has reccently published a couple of papers;

  Sarah Slotznick publsihed on "Reconstructing the paleoenvironment of an oxygenated Mesoproterozoic shoreline and its record of life" in the GSA Bulletin. The link is here [Open Access].
  
  While Tadesse Alemu published on "Grooving in the midcontinent: A tectonic origin for the mysterious striations of L’Anse Bay, Michigan, USA" in Geosphere Link is here [Open Access].

• There are three news papers from Lakehead researchers that may be of interest, all are open access and can be downloaded for free:

  Matt Brzozowski published a paper on "Characterizing the supra- and subsolidus processes that generated the Current PGE–Cu–Ni deposit, Thunder Bay North Intrusive Complex, Canada: insights from trace elements and multiple S isotopes of sulfides in Mineralium Deposita. The link is here [Open Access].
  
  Wyatt Bain published on "The geology, geochemistry, and magmatic evolution of the Legris Lake mafic–ultramafic complex, Ontario, Canada" also in Mineralium Deposita. Link is here [Open Access].

  Finally, Pete Hollings and co-authors published on "The ~1.1 Ga St. Ignace Island complex, Northern Ontario, Canada: Evidence for magma mixing and crustal melting in the generation of Midcontinent Rift-related bimodal magmas and implications for regional metallogeny" in Journal of Petrology. Link is here [Open Access].

• Nathan Sheldon at the University of Michigan has published a number of papers in the last year or so which make fairly extensive use of samples from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan localities near Lake Superior, and span an array of fields from paleontology to biogeochemistry.

  Colwyn, D.A., Sheldon, N.D., Maynard, J.B., Gaines, R., Hofmann, A., Wang, X., Gueguen, B., Asael, D., Reinhard, C.T., Planavsky, N.J., 2019. A paleosol record of the evolution of Cr redox cycling and evidence for an increase in atmospheric oxygen during the Neoproterozoic. Geobiology 17: 579-593. Link is here.
  
  Hren, M.T., Sheldon, N.D., 2020. Terrestrial microbialites provide constraints on the Mesoproterozoic atmosphere. The Depositional Record 6: 4-20. Link is here [Open Access].

  Noffke, N., Beraldi-Campesi, H., Callego, F., Carmona, N., Cuadrado, D.G., Hickman-Lewis, K., Homann, M., Mitchell, R., Sheldon, N.D., Westall, F., Xiao, S., 2022. Treatise Online no. 162: Part B, Volume 2, Chapter 5: Microbially induced sedimentary structures. doi: 10.17161/to.vi.18111 Link is here. 

  Rico, K.I., Sheldon, N.D., Gallagher, T.M., Chappaz. Redox chemistry and molybdenum burial in a Mesoproterozoic Lake. Geophysical Research Letters 46: 5871-5878. Link is here.

Sheldon, N.D., Mitchell, R.L., Dzombak, R.M., 2021. Reconstructing Precambrian pCO₂ and pO₂ using paleosols. Cambridge University Press, Elements in Geochemical Traces in Earth System Science. doi: 10.1017/9781108870962 Link is here.

• Matt Brzozowski from Lakehead University has just published a paper on the Re-Os systematics of the Midcontinent rift in the journal Lithos. It can be downloaded here.

• William Hinze of the Minnesota Geological Survey has a new publication out "From Compass to Drone: The Evolving Role of Magnetics in Mapping the Geology and Ore Deposits Of the Lake Superior Region: 1830-2022". It can be downloaded here.

• The Geological Survey of Canada have recently released the results of the latest Targeted Geoscience Initiative in Open File 8722 - Advances in the understanding of Canadian Ni-Cu-PGE and Cr ore systems - Examples from the Midcontinent Rift, the Circum-Superior Belt, the Archean Superior Province, and Cordilleran Alaskan-type intrusion. The enitre volume can be downloaded trough the Geoscan webite here. The two papers of most interest to ILSG membership are probably "The Midcontinent Rift and its mineral systems: Overview and temporal constraints of Ni-Cu-PGE mineralized intrusions" by Wouter Bleeker and his co-authors and "Timing and controls on Ni-Cu-PGE mineralization within the Crystal Lake Intrusion, 1.1 Ga Midcontinent Rift" by Jennifer Smith and her co-authors, but there are also papers on Raglan and the Ring of Fire.

• Nick Swanson-Hysell's research group has had a busy few months with a series of great looking papers. Nick and his co-authors just published " Rapid emplacement of massive Duluth Complex intrusions within the Midcontinent Rift" in Geology (link to journal page | open access version) and "Failed rifting and fast drifting: Midcontinent Rift development, Laurentia’s rapid motion and the driver of Grenvillian orogenesis" in the GSA Bulletin (link to journal page | open access version). Other papers by Nick and his team include "An oxygenated Mesoproterozoic lake revealed through magnetic mineralogy" in PNAS (link to journal page | open access archive), "The end of Midcontinent Rift magmatism and the paleogeography of Laurentia" in Lithosphere (link to journal page) and "A matter of minutes: Breccia dike paleomagnetism provides evidence for rapid crater modification" in Geology (link to journal page).

• Laurel Woodruf and her co-authors at the USGS have published a new paper in Ore Geology Reviews on "Mineral deposits of the Mesoproterozoic Midcontinent Rift system in the Lake Superior region – A space and time classification". A link to the paper can be found here.

• Tien Grauch and her co-authors at the USGS have published a new paper in Interpretation on "Integrated geophysical analysis provides an alternate interpretation of the northern margin of the North American Midcontinent Rift system, Central Lake Superior". A link to the paper can be found here.

• Thomas Bucholz and his co-authors have published a new paper in Canadian Mineralogist on "Seudobrookite from the Nine Mile Pluton, Marathon County, Wisconsin: an Occurrence from a Plutonic Environment.". A link to the paper can be found here.

• Timothy Gallagher and his co-authors have published a new paper in Precambrian Research on "Constraining the thermal history of the North American Midcontinent Rift System using carbonate clumped isotopes and organic thermal maturity indices". A link to the paper can be found here.

• The Michigan Geological Survey has published a new bibliography for Michigan Geology that includes an extensive section on the Precambrian Geology of the Upper Peninsula (roughly 1,950 references on the MCR and the Iron Ranges of MI - with some more general regional references included). This publication is a compilation of over 6,000 publicly available documents on Michigan geology, spanning the last 195 years. These are documents prepared by industry, the MGS, professional associations and by Michigan universities as well as other universities. This document is divided into four major sections: Precambrian, Paleozoic, Quaternary and Other Publications. Dr. Peter Voice compiled this magnificent summary with the cooperation of all the Michigan university libraries and their earth and geological sciences departments. As there were no complete listings of the theses, Dr. Voice collaborated with university libraries and departments to record detailed references. Please publicize this set of historical information. A link to the bibliography can be found here.

• Ria Mitchell and her co-author Nathan Sheldon have published a paper on "Sedimentary provenance and weathering processes in the 1.1 Ga Midcontinental Rift of the Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan". A link to the paper can be found here.

• Dylan Wilmeth, and co-authors Stephen Dornbos, John Isbell, and Andrew Czajahave published a paper on "Putative domal microbial structures in fluvial siliciclastic facies of the Mesoproterozoic (1.09 Ga) Copper Harbor Conglomerate, Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA". A link to the paper can be found here.

• Carol Stein (U Illinois-Chicago) and her colleagues have published a number of recent papers including "Variations in Mid-Continent Rift magma volumes consistent with microplate evolution", "Learning from failure: The SPREE Mid-Continent Rift Experiment", "Was the Midcontinent Rift part of a successful seafloor-spreading episode?" and "North America’s Midcontinent Rift: When rift met LIP".

• A recent MSc thesis by Oyekunle Ola at the University of Manitoba entitled "Lithospheric Fabric in Central North America: the Superior Province and the Mid-Continent Rift" has shown that not only is there no lithospheric fabric to speak of in the Nipigon Embayment, but there’s also a similar no-fabric zone just NE of Lake Superior. A copy of the abstract can be found here, or for more information contact Oyekunle's supervisor - Andrew Frederiksen.

• Although not directly related to the Superior region, long time ILSG member Ron Seavoy has just published his third geological book "Mining Agriculture Religion: The Three Frontiers of Indonesian Borneo in 1970" (Singapore, Equinox Publishing, Asia). For anyone interested Ron's earlier books were "A New Exploration of the Canadian Arctic" (Surrey, B.C., Hancock House Publishers) in 2002 and "Extinction: The Future of Humanity, A Short Study of Evolution from the Origin of Life to the Present (Hancock House Publishers, Surrey, B.C.) in 2010.

• The Midcontinent Rift was recently the subject of a news feature in Nature, written by Jessica Marshall. You can find the article here and can download a copy of the PDF here.

• In 2013 John Craddock and co-authors published two papers in the Journal of Geology, "Detrital Zircon Provenance of the Mesoproterozoic Midcontinent Rift, Lake Superior Region, U.S.A." and "Detrital Zircon Geochronology and Provenance of the Paleoproterozoic Huron (∼2.4–2.2 Ga) and Animikie (∼2.2–1.8 Ga) Basins, Southern Superior Province". You can find the Table of Contents for the entire volume here.

• There have been a couple of relatively recent publications in Canadian Mineralogist. Simmons and co-authors published the paper "A comparison of the mineralogical and geochemical character and geological setting of Proterozoic REE-rich granitic pegmatites of the North-Central and Southwestern US" whereas Falster et al. published "Mineralogical and mineral-chemical heterogeneity indicated by the distribution of accessory minerals in pegmatites of the Nine Mile pluton of the Wausau Syenite Complex, Marathon County, Wisconsin". You can find the Table of Contents for the entire volume here.

• Michigan Tech and the A.E. Seaman Mineral Museum have just published an update to the Mineralogy of Michigan, originally published in 1976 and last revised in 2004. A copy can be downloaded here.

• There have been a flurry of articles published in recent issues of Precambrian Research. In the November 2011 issue Fralick and Carter published "Neoarchean deep marine paleotemperature: Evidence from turbidite successions, the January 2012 issue contained the paper "Geochronology of the North Caribou greenstone belt, Superior Province Canada: Implications for tectonic history and gold mineralization at the Musselwhite mine by Biczok et al. and in the February 2012 issue can be found the paper "Diamondiferous, Neoarchean fan-delta deposits, western Superior Province, Canada: Sedimentology and provenance" by Wendland et al.

• The 2011 GSA Annual meeting in Minneapolis published a field guide that includes many excellent guides written by and hopefully of interest to ILSG members. Examples include "Late Paleoproterozoic deformational, metamorphic, and magmatic history of east-central Minnesota" by Boerboom et al., "Classic Precambrian geology of northeast Minnesota" by Jirsa and Green, "The Baraboo District—A North American classic" by Medaris et al. and "The North Shore Volcanic Group: Mesoproterozoic plateau volcanic rocks of the Midcontinent Rift System in northeastern Minnesota" by Green et al. You can find the Table of Contents for the entire volume here.

• The February 2011 issue of Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences includes a paper by Gary Beakhouse, Shoufa Lin and Sandra Kamo on "Magmatic and tectonic emplacement of the Pukaskwa batholith, Superior Province, Ontario, Canada". This is also a Special Issue in honour of Tom Krogh with a number of other papers that might be of interest to the membership.

• Three recent articles on paleosols have been published in Precambrian Research. In 2009 Mitchell and Sheldon published "Weathering and paleosol formation in the 1.1Ga Keweenawan Rift" followed by "The ∼1100Ma Sturgeon Falls paleosol revisited: Implications for Mesoproterozoic weathering environments and atmospheric CO₂ levels" the next year. Most recently, in 2011 Steven Driese and co-authors published "Neoarchean paleoweathering of tonalite and metabasalt: Implications for reconstructions of 2.69 Ga early terrestrial ecosystems and paleoatmospheric chemistry"

• The journal Precambrian Research has published an article by Pete Hollings, Mark Smyk, Larry Heaman and Henry Halls on "The geochemistry, geochronology and paleomagnetism of dikes and sills associated with the Mesoproterozoic Midcontinent Rift near Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada"

• The January 2010 issue of the GSA Bulletin contains an article by W.F. Cannon, K.J. Schulz, J. Wright Horton, Jr., and David A. Kring on "The Sudbury impact layer in the Paleoproterozoic iron ranges of northern Michigan, USA"

Dick Ojakangas, has recently published his new book Roadside Geology of Minnesota. According the the publisher (Mountain Press Publishing Company) this latest addition to the acclaimed Roadside Geology series, will steer you over glacial moraines and till plains to some of the state’s unparalleled geologic features, such as the Morton Gneiss, once thought to be the oldest rock on Earth; the St. Peter Sandstone, one of the purest sandstones in the world; the banded iron-formation, the source of iron for the Great Lakes steel industry; and the ancient shorelines of Glacial Lake Agassiz, one of the largest glacial lakes that ever existed in North America.

• Two papers on the Animikie Red Ace Pegmatite in Wisconsin have recently been published. The first, published in Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology by Mona-Liza C. Sirbescu, Emily E. Hartwick and James J. Student dealt with the "Rapid crystallization of the Animikie Red Ace Pegmatite, Florence county, northeastern Wisconsin: inclusion microthermometry and conductive-cooling modeling" whereas the second was published in Canadian Mineralogist by Mona-Liza C. Sirbescu, Mark A. Leatherman, James J. Student, and Alison R. Beehr and discussed "Apatite textures and compositions as records of crystallization processes in the Animikie Red Ace pegmatite dike, Wisconsin, USA".

• The October, 2009 issue of Nature Geoscience includes a paper by Nicholas Swanson-Hysell, Adam C. Maloof, Benjamin P. Weiss & David A. D. Evans entitled "No asymmetry in geomagnetic reversals recorded by 1.1-billion-year-old Keweenawan basalts".

• The January, 2010 issue of Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta includes a paper by Johanna Marina, Marc Chaussidona and François Robert entitled "Microscale oxygen isotope variations in 1.9 Ga Gunflint cherts: Assessments of diagenesis effects and implications for oceanic paleotemperature reconstructions".

• The August, 2009 issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters includes a paper by Noah Planavsky, Olivier Rouxel, Andrey Bekker, Russell Shapiro, Phil Fralick, and Andrew Knudsen entitled "Iron-oxidizing microbial ecosystems thrived in late Paleoproterozoic redox-stratified oceans".

• Key Porter Books have recently published "Ghost Mountains and Vanishing Oceans: North America from Birth to Middle Age" by John Wilson and Ron Clowes. According to the publisher "Geologists John Wilson and Dr. Ron Clowes narrate the tale of earth’s coming-of-age in Ghost Mountains and Vanishing Oceans: North America from Birth to Middle Age. The vast jigsaw puzzle of geological plates that drifted together to form today’s continents have not done with floating just yet. They also tell the story of Lithoprobe, created in Canada early 1980s, as part of an international program and seen as the best project in earth sciences' field. It combines multidisciplinary studies of the Canadian landmass and surrounding offshore margins to determine how the northern North American continent has formed over geological time from 4,000 million years ago to the present". The book is widely available through Amazon.

• The November 2009 issue of Geology includes a paper by John Slack and Bill Cannon entitled "Extraterrestrial demise of banded iron formations 1.85 billion years ago"

• The January 2009 issue of Precambrian Research is a special issue on the Superior Province edited by Greg Stott and Wulf Mueller. The volume is titled "Superior Province: The nature and evolution of the Archean continental lithosphere, Superior Province: Nature, evolution and mineral resources of the Archean continental lithosphere". Volume 168 (1-2) includes papers on geochemistry, volcanology, structural geology and sediment geochemistry.

• The June 2008 issue of Precambrian Research includes a paper by Elena Drugueta, Dyanna M. Czeckb, Jordi Carrerasa and Lina M. Castaño entitled "Emplacement and deformation features of syntectonic leucocratic veins from Rainy Lake zone (Western Superior Province, Canada)". There is also a related article in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences by Dyanna M. Czeck, Stephanie M. Maes, Claire L. Sturm, and Elizabeth M. Fein entitled "Assessment of the relationship between emplacement of the Algoman plutons and regional deformation in the Rainy Lake region, Ontario

• The July 2008 issue of the Journal of Sedimentary Research includes a paper by Steven G. Driese and L. Gordon Medaris, Jr. entitled "Evidence for Biological and Hydrological Controls on the Development of a Paleoproterozoic Paleoweathering Profile in the Baraboo Range, Wisconsin, U.S.A".

• The April 2007 issue of Exploration and Mining Geology includes a paper by A.H.Mumin, S.D.Scott, A.K.Somarin and K.S.Oran entitled "Structural Controls on Massive Sulfide Deposition and Hydrothermal Alteration in the South Sturgeon Lake Caldera, Northwestern Ontario".

• The May 2008 issue of Precambrian Research includes a paper by Halls, Davis, Stott, Ernst and Hamilton entitled "The Paleoproterozoic Marathon Large Igneous Province: New evidence for a 2.1 Ga long-lived mantle plume event along the southern margin of the North American Superior Province".

• The August 2007 issue of Precambrian Research is a Special Issue on the "Proterozoic tectonic and crustal evolution of the Upper Great Lakes region, North America". Volume 157 includes articles on geochronology, tectonics, metamorphism and sedimentology.

• The August 2007 issue of Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences is a Special Issue on the results of the Lake Nipigon region Geoscience Initiative. Volume 44, No. 8 includes articles on geochronology, geochemistry of the sills, sedimentology of Sibley Group, Quaternary geology and a review of the mineral deposit

• The March 2007 issue of Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences includes a paper by Hollings, Fralick and Cousens entitled "Early history of the Midcontinent Rift inferred from geochemistry and sedimentology of the Mesoproterozoic Osler Group, northwestern Ontario"

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