Morphology and genesis of nodular chalks and hardgrounds in the Upper Cretaceous of southern England

The Upper Cretaceous chalks of southern England are a thick sequence of rhythmically bedded, bioturbated coccolith micrites, deposited in an outer shelf environment in water depths which varied between 50 and 200–300 m. The products of sea floor cementation are widely represented in the sequence, and a series of stages of progressive lithification can be recognized. These began with a pause in sedimentation and the formation of an omission surface, followed by (a) growth of discrete nodules below the sediment-water interface to form a nodular chalk, erosion of which produced intraformational conglomerates. (b) Further growth and fusion of nodules into continuous or semicontinuous layers: incipient hardgrounds. (c) Scour, which exposed the layer as a true hardground. At this stage, the exposed lithified chalk bottom was subject to boring and encrustation by a variety of organisms, whilst calcium carbonate was frequently replaced by glauconite and phosphate to produce superficial mineralized zones. In many cases, the processes of sedimentation, cementation, exposure and mineralization were repeated several times, producing composite hardgrounds built up of a series of layers of cemented and mineralized chalk, indicating a long and complex diagenetic history. Petrographic study of early cemented chalks indicates lithification was the result of the precipitation of small crystals on and between coccoliths and coccolith fragments. By analogy with known occurrences of early lithification in Recent deeper water carbonates, the cement is believed to have been either high magnesian calcite or aragonite, and more probably the former. The vast scale of operations involved in the cementation process precludes carbonate in expelled pore fluids as the source of cement, whilst quantities of aragonite incorporated in sediment are also inadequate. This, plus the observed association of horizons of early lithification with pauses in sedimentation associated with omission surfaces suggests seawater as a source of cementing materials. Stratigraphic studies indicate that processes of early lithification leading to hardground formation proceeded to completion in intervals to be measured in tens or hundreds of years. Regional studies suggest that early lithification characterized relatively shallow water phases associated with regional regression over the whole of the area, whilst in detail, the distribution of mature mineralized hardground complexes is strongly correlated with sedimentary thinning and condensation over small areas and the buried flanks of massifs. Early cementation in more basinal areas is typically in the form of nodular developments and incipient hardgrounds, whilst day contents in excess of a few percent appear to have inhibited early lithification. The striking rhythmicity of hardgrounds and nodular chalks is no more than a particular expression of the overall rhythmicity of chalk sequences. The stage of early lithification reached in any instance is dependent on sediment type, the time interval represented by the associated omission surface and the degree of associated scour and erosion (if any). Chalk hardgrounds differ from most others described in the geological literature in their widespread distribution (individual hardgrounds may cover up to 1500 km²), the presence of striking glauconite and phosphate replacements of lithified carbonate matrices, their frequently sparse epifaunas, and boring infaunas dominated by clionid sponges. These differences reflect the deeper water shelf setting of the chalk, and the more open marine, oceanic circulatory system, both strikingly different from the setting of other, shallower water hardgrounds. Litho- and biostratigraphic variation in the chalk sequences of the area studied are summarized in an appendix.     

STRUCTURAL AND TEXTURAL EVIDENCE OF EARLY LITHIFICATION IN FINE-GRAINED CARBONATE ROCKS

SUMMARY
Absence of compaction, intraformational breccias, resedimention, internal sediments and synsedimentary hardgrounds indicate early lithification of finegrained carbonate rocks. One of the factors controlling early lithification is the purity of lime mud. Less than 2% of insoluble residue (especially clay minerals) favours cementation and recrystallisation before further sediment accumulation causes compaction. Thus, early lithification is terminated in or near the environment of sedimentation. "Electrodiagenesis" is considered to be a possible mechanism for cementation.     

Storm activities during the sedimentation of late Paleocene-middle Eocene Subathu Formation,western Himalayan foreland basin

Late Paleocene-middle Eocene Subathu Formation represents the earliest deposits of the western Himalayan foreland basin. A large part of this formation is comprised of impure limestone and grey shale intercalations. The limestones contain sole marks, intraformational conglomerates, hummocky cross stratification and wave ripples. The occurrence of sole marks suggests that they are developed by the unidirectional currents at the initial phase of the storm that resulted erosion and subsequent deposition. The intraformational limestone conglomearate also suggests erosion of the earlier deposited limestone hardgrounds as a consequence of storm associated transgression. The hummocky cross stratification formed by the oscillatory flows during the long-shore littoral drift. The depth of formation of the hummocky cross stratified limestone facies was less than 40 m and most likely deposited between shore-face to backshore regions of the gulf similar to present day Persian Gulf. The identification of deeper facies (shelf facies) from Pakistan and coastal facies from India suggest that the gulf was open from the west and closed from the east.     

A modern oceanic hardground on the Carnegie Ridge in the eastern Equatorial Pacific

Fossil surfaces of erosion and non-deposition are common in limestone sequences from the Mesozoic in western Europe and in the Tethys and have been described under the name ‘hardgrounds’. They are of shallow water as well as of oceanic origin. A modern example in the Pacific is described in this paper. The Carnegie Ridge, an east-west trending shallow ridge between South America and the Galapagos Islands, has a central, deeper saddle where erosion has removed most of the sediment cover down to a hard chalk and chert bed (acoustic basement), and has cut intricate channel patterns on the south flank and two deep canyons on the north. The erosion has produced a karst-like relief of steep-walled channels, cliffs, and corroded chalk remnants. The floors of the channels are covered with ferromanganese oxide crusts or crust fragments over which loose sediment is being transported. In the two canyons on the north flank, this sediment consists of foraminiferal sand travelling downslope in the form of barchan dunes. All sediment down to acoustic basement has been stripped from the Carnegie Ridge crest except where it is protected behind basement ridges and pinnacles. Surface features of the eroded chalk are strongly reminiscent of features observed in Mesozoic hardgrounds. Current measurements over several days indicate a net northward movement, slow but possibly adequate to keep the sea floor free of fresh deposits. The rates, however, seem inadequate to explain the formation of the deep channels, and there is no evidence for the southward flow which is implied by the southern channel system. A process of combined carbonate dissolution and removal by the current of fresh sediment and dissolution residues can account for the required erosion in about two million years. Regional unconformities identifiable in seismic reflection profiles and dated in cores are of middle to late Pliocene age, suggesting that the formation of the erosion surface began 2-3 million years ago. Buried Miocene unconformities of local extent show that the present erosion period had minor precursors possibly related to short-lived increases in current action and carbonate dissolution.     

一种低海平面时期的沉积岩相——深水盆地相碳酸盐砾岩层序

作者认为北美阿巴拉契亚地区和我国贺兰山地区奥陶系的一套碳酸盐砾岩层序,就是低海平面时期的一种特殊沉积岩相。这种岩相不仅是古海洋条件变化的一种标志,而且也是良好的油气储集层。文中主要从沉积学的角度解释了它们的形成机制。     

Early diagenetic phosphate cements in the Albian condensed glauconitic limestone of the Tatra Mountains, Western Carpathians

Early diagenetic phosphate cements are described from the Albian condensed glauconitic limestone of the Tatra Mountains, Western Carpathians with regard to their macro- and micromorphology, distribution, classification, and genesis. The cements occur within stratigraphically condensed semi-pelagic foramini-feral-glauconitic layers and are associated with mature hardgrounds within the Tatra Albian limestone. Phosphate cement fabrics consist of crypto- to microcrystalline carbonate-fluorapatite, and they occur as: (i) rim envelopes, (ii) infillings of intraparticle porosity, (iii) rim cement, (iv) multiple rim cement, (v) palisade fabric and (vi) cluster cement. Micromorphological variability of the cement fabrics results from varying texture of the cemented sediment, the nature of original porosity, as well as from presence of associated microbial fabrics. The microbial fabrics are interpreted as fossilized coccoid cyanobacteria. Phosphate cementation developed under peculiar early diagenetic conditions within semi-closed microenvironments rich in organic matter in the marine phreatic environment. The cementation contributed to the formation of phosphatic fossils and hardgrounds. The accretion of the cements was due to concentration of biologically uptaken phosphorus near the sediment/water interface, enrichment of pore fluids with respect to phosphate, and its precipitation within restricted microenvironments. Phosphate cementation post-dated seafloor formation of pelletal glauconite but predated partial decomposition of organic matter as well as dissolution or neomorphism of aragonite and high-Mg calcite. Phosphate cementation occurred on a carbonate platform following the submersion of Urgonian reefal build-ups. Episodes of phosphate cementation were repeated during the sedimentation of the Tatra Albian limestone as a response to rapid relative sea-level rises and increased influence of nutrient-rich Tethyan waters.     

The Holocene non-tropical coastal and shelf carbonate province of southern Australia

Carbonate-dominant sediments are currently forming and accumulating over the extensive marine shelf of the passive margin of southern Australia. A dearth of continental detritus results from both a very low relief and a predominantly arid climate. The wide continental shelf is bathed by cold upwelling ocean waters that support luxuriant growths of bryozoans and coralline algae, together with sponges, molluscs, asteroids, benthic and some planktonic foraminifera. The open ocean coast is battered by a persistent southwest swell, resulting in erosion of calcrete-encrusted Pleistocene eolianites. Much sediment is reworked and overall shelf sedimentation rates are low. High-energy microtidal beach/dune systems occur between headlands and along the very long ocean beach in the Coorong region. The northern, more arid coastal areas also contain saline lakes that precipitate gypsum from infiltrated sea water, and display marginal facies of aragonite boxwork to fenestral carbonate crusts, with stromatolites and tepee structures. In contrast, the southern, seasonally humid Coorong region, has a predominantly continental groundwater regime where sulphate is rare, and the high summer evaporation precipitates dolomite, magnesite and aragonite muds. Fenestral crusts, breccias, tepees and some stromatolites are also present.

St. Vincent and Spencer gulfs both afford some protection from ocean swell, but tidal amplitude and currents increase, and a depth and inundation-related zonation of plants and animals is established. Muddy carbonate sand accumulates on the sea floor below 30 m, where filter-feeding bryozoans, bivalves and sponges dominate. In shallower regions, seagrass meadows contain a rich fauna that results in rapid accumulation of an unsorted muddy bioclastic sand. Mangrove woodlands backed by saline marsh with cyanobacterial mats are common, and accumulate mud-rich and gastropod-bearing sediment. As tidal amplitude and desiccation increase northward into both gulfs, a supratidal zone bare of vegetation (sabkha) becomes the site for deposition of gypsum-rich and fenestral calcitic mud.     

Mount Woolnough: the submerged volcano,SE of Sydney,NSW

Part of a larger investigation of the sea bed off Sydney was a study of the extinct submarine volcano Mount Woolnough. It is located approximately 41 km east of Kurnell, NSW, and protrudes 175 m above the sediment cover at depths of approximately ?550 to ?375 m. Volcanic rock, approximately 2.2 km in diameter, is exposed above the sediment sea floor and is much smaller than its magnetic expression (approximately 13 km in diameter). Samples dredged from Mount Woolnough were conglomerates with phosphatic nodules and volcanic fragments set in a fine foraminiferal sediment matrix. Zircons within the mafic fragments yielded a minimum age of 261 Ma.     

Marine cements in mid-Tertiary cool-water shelf limestones of New Zealand and southern Australia

Large areas of southern Australia and New Zealand are covered by mid‐Tertiary limestones formed in cool‐water, shelf environments. The generally destructive character of sea‐floor diagenesis in such settings precludes ubiquitous inorganic precipitation of carbonates, yet these limestones include occasional units with marine cements: (1) within rare in situ biomounds; (2) within some stacked, cross‐bedded sand bodies; (3) at the top of metre‐scale, subtidal, carbonate cycles; and (4) most commonly, associated with certain unconformities. The marine cements are dominated by isopachous rinds of fibrous to bladed spar, interstitial homogeneous micrite and interstitial micropeloidal micrite, often precipitated sequentially in that order. Internal sedimentation of microbioclastic micrite may occur at any stage. The paradox of marine‐cemented limestone units in an overall destructive cool‐water diagenetic regime may be explained by the precipitation of cement as intermediate Mg‐calcite from marine waters undersaturated with respect to aragonite. In some of the marine‐cemented limestones, aragonite biomoulds may include marine cement/sediment internally, suggesting that dissolution of aragonite can at times be wholly marine and not always involve meteoric influences. We suggest that marine cementation occurred preferentially, but not exclusively, during periods of relatively lowered sea level, probably glacio‐eustatically driven in the mid‐Tertiary. At times of reduced sea level, there was a relative increase in both the temperature and the carbonate saturation state of the shelf waters, and the locus of carbonate sedimentation shifted towards formerly deeper shelf sites, which now experienced increased swell wave and/or tidal energy levels, fostering sediment abrasion and reworking, reduced sedimentation rates and freer exchange of sediment pore‐waters. Energy levels were probably also enhanced by increased upwelling of cold, deep waters onto the Southern Ocean margins of the Australasian carbonate platforms, where water‐mass mixing, warming and loss of CO₂ locally maintained critical levels of carbonate saturation for sea‐floor cement precipitation and promoted the phosphate‐glauconite mineralization associated with some of the marine‐cemented limestone units.     

Origin of a cool-water, Oligo-Miocene deep shelf limestone, Eucla Platform, southern Australia

The Abrakurrie Limestone is an areally extensive, bryozoan-rich unit within the Eucla Platform, a Tertiary carbonate shelf which caps the central part of the southern Australian continental margin. The onshore portion, the topic of this study, has been exposed since middle Miocene time and lies beneath the Nullarbor Plain. The rocks are fine-sand- to granule-sized calcarenites, composed of bryozoans, bivalves, benthic foraminifera and echinoids with lesser numbers of brachiopods, solitary corals and serpulids. They conspicuously lack significant numbers of planktonic foraminifera and coralline algae. Most bryozoan remains are from delicate branching cyclostomes although delicate branching, robust branching, foliose, fenestrate, multilaminar encrusting and free-living cheilostomes are variably abundant in specific units. The poorly lithified sequence is punctuated by well-cemented layers with erosional tops, which are interpreted as hardgrounds. The limestone is interpreted as a cool-water, deep shelf deposit which accumulated in water depths generally greater than 50 m on the inner part of the Eucla Platform. A model which involves deposition and cementation on a carbonate shelf swept by open ocean swells is proposed to explain the style of sedimentation. The shelf is envisaged as partitioned by the depth of the zone of wave abrasion. Sediments were produced throughout, but accumulated only below this depth. When the seafloor was above this depth it was an environment of cementation and erosion. The vertical sequence correlates in a general way with the global sea-level model for the mid-Cenozoic. While accumulation rates for southern Australian carbonates are similar to rates of cool-water carbonate deposition elsewhere (c. 2.5 cm kyr^-1), the rate of Abrakurrie accumulation is much less, suggesting that significant time periods are represented by the hardgrounds.     

Lateral variations in sediment composition and bedding in Middle Triassic interplatform basins (Buchenstein Formation, southern Alps, Italy)

ABSTRACT Hemipelagic deposits are widespread in Triassic sequences of the Alpine belt and provide important data for stratigraphy and the study of bedding rhythms. The area of the western and central Dolomites of northern Italy escaped strong alpidic deformation and preserves such deposits in their original palaeogeographic setting. The Buchenstein Formation, the object of this study, was deposited in up to 1000 m deep, Middle Triassic interplatform basins, which extend over an area of 500 km² within the Dolomites. Excellent outcrops and volcaniclastic markers allow a detailed correlation of the formation in both laminated (anoxic) and bioturbated facies down to a bed scale, and show its relationship to coeval carbonate platforms. Correlation of lithostratigraphically well‐constrained intervals in the bioturbated facies reveal that lateral thickening and thinning of the deposits depends on the amount of shallow‐water debris in the succession and is a function of the distance to coeval carbonate platform sources. In the laminated background deposit, thickness variations in limestones and marls parallel the thickness variations in ash layers, and were caused by local redeposition of sediment on the basin floor. Lateral persistence of laminae indicates that bottom currents were weak in the Buchenstein basin, but were able to redeposit mud in a significant way. In the area around Seceda and Geisler (western Dolomites), a lateral transition from dark‐grey laminated to grey bioturbated to red bioturbated facies is observed, which is probably linked to local relief with different oxygenation conditions on the sea floor. A comparison shows that decimetre‐scale bedding is preserved in all facies types and that the bedding rhythm is partly the result of different cementation of the sediment during early diagenesis. Correlation of individual layers in the bioturbated facies reveals that beds are thicker and enriched in lime mud in the western part of the basin, and decrease in thickness and contain less micrite towards the east, further away from the main shallow‐water areas. Nearslope calciturbidites change gradually from distinct layers into lateral arrays of micrite nodules and bands further out in the basin. These observations point to a platform source of lime mud in the Buchenstein basin.     

豫西前寒武纪汝阳群和洛峪群中风暴沉积

豫西前寒式纪汝阳群和洛峪群中广泛发育不同类型的风暴岩,主要包括丘状交错层砂岩、洼状交错层砂岩、浅水浊积岩以及与风暴作用有关的硬底、凝缩层和层间砾岩。不同类型风暴署具有不同的岩相组合及形成过程,并且发育在浅海陆棚的不同沉积带中。由洼伏交错层砂岩为主的相组合代表了滨岸带的下部;丘状交错层砂岩相组合指示风暴浪基面以上的内陆棚;而浅水浊积岩相组合则主要发育在外陆棚沉积区。这种风暴岩的沉积模式可用于详细恢复受风暴影响的古陆棚环境。     

巴彦浩特盆地东缘中奥陶统混合型深水重力流沉积层序及其旋回

作者在巴彦浩特盆地东缘中奥陶统樱桃沟组中识别出一套巨厚的混合型深水重力流沉积岩,包括碳酸盐滑塌角砾岩?递变细砾岩?砂质砾岩?经典浊积岩?灰绿色泥页岩等岩相类型?作者认为碳酸盐滑塌角砾岩是近源海底断裂陡崖下形成的碎屑裙的产物,而陆源碎屑-浊积岩是基岩古风化壳剥蚀而形成的一系列碎屑流-浊流沉积物?对其纵向序列进行分析后作者认为,该套岩层总体上相当于一个Ⅱ级旋回,代表拗拉槽强烈沉陷阶段的产物,为次一级的地壳升降旋回,主要受古构造因素控制,而每一陆源与内源沉积物混合体则相当于一个Ⅲ级旋回,代表一个低级次的海平面升降旋回?     

Estuarine sedimentation in the Eocene of southern England

A temporary section in the Cuisian Bagshot Beds, which has been mapped in detail, displayed estuarine sediments with interlayered sands and muds, fine sands, channel-fill sands and intraformational (mainly mud clast) conglomerates. The facies show rapid lateral and vertical changes in grain size and bed form and a restricted suite of trace fossils including Ophiomorpha nodosa and Arenicolites sp. The sequence is shown to have been deposited in a subtidal channel where tidal, wave and fluvial processes were dominant at different times. The following points are considered to be characteristic of sedimentation in this environment: (i) correlation is difficult and facies predictability is low; (ii) there are frequent lateral facies changes from the channel to the subtidal bank environment; (iii) pene-contemporaneous erosion removes considerable amounts of sediment; (iv) load structures may be exposed, eroded, buried and reactivated; and (v) muddy layers and bioturbated horizons offer similar resistance to penecontemporaneous erosion.     

Were kinetics of Archean calcium carbonate precipitation related to oxygen concentration?

Archean carbonates commonly contain decimetre- to metre-thick beds consisting entirely of fibrous calcite and neomorphosed fibrous aragonite that precipitated in situ on the sea floor. The fact that such thick accumulations of precipitated carbonate are rare in younger marine carbonates suggests an important change in the modes of calcium carbonate precipitation through time. Kinetics of carbonate precipitation depend on the concentration of inhibitors to precipitation that reduce crystallization rates and crystal nuclei formation, leading to kinetic maintenance of supersaturated solutions. Inhibitors also affect carbonate textures by limiting micrite precipitation and promoting growth of older carbonate crystals on the sea floor. Fe2+, a strong calcite-precipitation inhibitor, is thought to have been present at relatively high concentrations in Archean seawater because oxygen concentrations were low. The rise in oxygen concentration at 2.2-1.9 Ga led to the removal of Fe2+ from seawater and resulted in a shift from Archean facies, which commonly include precipitated beds, to Proterozoic facies, which contain more micritic sediment and only rare precipitated beds.     

A Cretaceous carbonate delta drift in the Montagna della Maiella,Italy

The Upper Cretaceous (Campanian–Maastrichtian) bioclastic wedge of the Orfento Formation in the Montagna della Maiella, Italy, is compared to newly discovered contourite drifts in the Maldives. Like the drift deposits in the Maldives, the Orfento Formation fills a channel and builds a Miocene delta‐shaped and mounded sedimentary body in the basin that is similar in size to the approximately 350 km² large coarse‐grained bioclastic Miocene delta drifts in the Maldives. The composition of the bioclastic wedge of the Orfento Formation is also exclusively bioclastic debris sourced from the shallow‐water areas and reworked clasts of the Orfento Formation itself. In the near mud‐free succession, age‐diagnostic fossils are sparse. The depositional textures vary from wackestone to float‐rudstone and breccia/conglomerates, but rocks with grainstone and rudstone textures are the most common facies. In the channel, lensoid convex‐upward breccias, cross‐cutting channelized beds and thick grainstone lobes with abundant scours indicate alternating erosion and deposition from a high‐energy current. In the basin, the mounded sedimentary body contains lobes with a divergent progradational geometry. The lobes are built by decametre thick composite megabeds consisting of sigmoidal clinoforms that typically have a channelized topset, a grainy foreset and a fine‐grained bottomset with abundant irregular angular clasts. Up to 30 m thick channels filled with intraformational breccias and coarse grainstones pinch out downslope between the megabeds. In the distal portion of the wedge, stacked grainstone beds with foresets and reworked intraclasts document continuous sediment reworking and migration. The bioclastic wedge of the Orfento Formation has been variously interpreted as a succession of sea‐level controlled slope deposits, a shoaling shoreface complex, or a carbonate tidal delta. Current‐controlled delta drifts in the Maldives, however, offer a new interpretation because of their similarity in architecture and composition. These similarities include: (i) a feeder channel opening into the basin; (ii) an excavation moat at the exit of the channel; (iii) an overall mounded geometry with an apex that is in shallower water depth than the source channel; (iv) progradation of stacked lobes; (v) channels that pinch out in a basinward direction; and (vi) smaller channelized intervals that are arranged in a radial pattern. As a result, the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian–Maastrichtian) bioclastic wedge of the Orfento Formation in the Montagna della Maiella, Italy, is here interpreted as a carbonate delta drift.     

Facies analysis of the Trypali carbonate unit (Upper Triassic) in central-western Crete (Greece): an evaporite formation transformed into solution-collapse breccias

The Trypali carbonate unit (Upper Triassic), which crops out mainly in central‐western Crete, occurs between the parautochthonous series (Plattenkalk or Talea Ori‐Ida series, e.g. metamorphic Ionian series) and the Tripolis nappe (comprising the Tripolis carbonate series and including a basal Phyllite–Quartzite unit). It consists of interbedded dolomitic layers, represented principally by algally laminated peloidal mudstones, foraminiferal, peloidal and ooidal grainstones, as well as by fine‐grained detrital carbonate layers, in which coarse baroque dolomite crystals and dolomite nodules are dispersed. Baroque dolomite is present as pseudomorphs after evaporite crystals (nodules and rosettes), which grew penecontemporaneously by displacement and/or replacement of the host sediments (sabkha diagenesis). However, portions of the evaporites show evidence of resedimentation. Pre‐existing evaporites predominantly consisted of skeletal halite crystals that formed from fragmentation of pyramidal‐shaped hoppers, as well as of anhydrite nodules and rosettes (salt crusts). All microfacies are characteristic of peritidal depositional environments, such as sabkhas, tidal flats, shallow hypersaline lagoons, tidal bars and/or tidal channels. Along most horizons, the Trypali unit is strongly brecciated. These breccias are of solution‐collapse origin, forming after the removal of evaporite beds. Evaporite‐related diagenetic fabrics show that there was extensive dissolution and replacement of pre‐existing evaporites, which resulted in solution‐collapse of the carbonate beds. Evaporite replacement fabrics, including calcitized and silicified evaporite crystals, are present in cements in the carbonate breccias. Brecciation was a multistage process; it started in the Triassic, but was most active in the Tertiary, in association with uplift and ground‐water flow (telogenetic alteration). During late diagenesis, in zones of intense evaporite leaching and brecciation, solution‐collapse breccias were transformed to rauhwackes. The Trypali carbonate breccias (Trypali unit) are lithologically and texturally similar to the Triassic solution‐collapse breccias of the Ionian zone (continental Greece). The evaporites probably represent a major diapiric injection along the base of the parautochthonous series (metamorphic Ionian series) and also along the overthrust surface separating the parautochthonous series from the Tripolis nappe (Phyllite–Quartzite and Tripolis series). The injected evaporites were subsequently transformed into solution‐collapse breccias.     

吉林市上二叠统杨家沟组沉积环境

吉林市杨家沟组剖面位于吉林市二道沟附近,出露良好,属于人工露头。杨家沟组按照岩性分为上下两段,底部为构造角砾岩;下段主要为砾岩,砾石为近源的碳酸盐岩,发育有冲刷面构造和正粒序层理;上段主要为黑色、灰黑色泥岩和页岩,发育有水平层理,夹有粉砂岩薄层。杨家沟发育淡水双壳类化石和植物化石,为湖泊沉积环境,粗碎屑岩为扇三角洲前缘水下分流河道沉积、浊积扇砂体,泥岩主要为半深湖、深湖相沉积。采集8块泥岩样品,进行微量及稀土元素地球化学分析,采用元素绝对数量、个别元素比值数量、个别元素经标准化后的比值数量及个别元素的组合关系,通过判别图表等判断上二叠统杨家沟组为陆相还原环境,物源主要为大陆岛弧环境,Th/U介于4.45～5.38,属于咸水沉积,可能反映杨家沟组沉积时期偶尔有海侵现象。杨家沟组为典型的陆相沉积,代表东北地区晚二叠世海水退出,华北板块与佳蒙地块的拼接,杨家沟组底部的底砾岩,是这次构造运动的沉积响应,而近源沉积的碳酸盐岩砾石,可能来自于附近的哲斯组或者磨盘山组、鹿圈屯组。     

On diagenesis,dolomitisation and mineralisation in the Irish Zn-Pb orefield

Marine calcite cementation and lithification of Carboniferous carbonate sediments hosting Zn-Pb mineralisation in the Irish orefield occurred at or near the seafloor. A relatively early, fine-grained, grey replacive dolomite, preferentially developed in micrite, is widely developed in the Waulsortian Limestone Formation, the main host to mineralisation, and is pervasive in the southeastern Midlands in proximity to the Leinster Massif. This dolomite formed after the first four main stages of calcite cementation but probably also developed within tens of metres of the seafloor as evidenced by incorporation of clasts of dolomite in intraformational sedimentary breccias. Later, coarse-grained white dolomite preferentially replaced coarser components of the Waulsortian Limestone and infilled residual vuggy porosity. Whilst some of this coarse dolomite may be related to the fine replacive dolomite event, a common spatial association with fault zones, coupled with primary fluid inclusion data, suggest that a significant proportion of this phase precipitated during the onset of fault-controlled subsidence and widespread hydrothermal circulation within the Irish Midlands area. Fluids up to ~250 °C and 10–15 wt% NaCl equivalent, sourced from a Lower Palaeozoic basement-equilibrated fluid reservoir, infiltrated the carbonate sequence via faults and fractures. The more localised development of dolomite-cemented breccias (white matrix breccias) that are frequently associated spatially with mineralisation was a consequence of the increased focusing of these hydrothermal fluids. Ore formation was broadly synchronous with development of the white dolomite breccias but only happened where mixing occurred between the hydrothermal ore-fluids and localised, near-surface reservoirs of low-temperature, H₂S-rich brine. In the Waulsortian, this process led to the precipitation of a distinctive black dolomite that forms a broad halo to massive sulphides. Although ore-stage sulphides postdate significant diagenesis of the host rocks, and often display "epigenetic" textures, the fact that much of the cementation occurred soon after carbonate deposition means that mineralisation does not have to have formed after significant burial. In fact, the occurrence of clasts of hydrothermal dolomite and sulphides in intraformational debris-flow breccias is only consistent with mineralising processes occurring in the near-seafloor environment, relatively soon after host-rock deposition. The regional development of a distinctive pink dolomite associated with faults and fractures was a post-ore event, and is considered to mark a regional brine migration linked to the onset of the Variscan orogeny. The development of this new tectonic and flow regime may have been responsible for the cessation of economic mineralisation in Ireland.Editorial handling: J. Menuge     

A review of the origin and setting of tepees and their associated fabrics

Carbonate hardgrounds often occur at the surface of shallow subtidal to supratidal, lacustrine, and subaerial carbonate shelf sediments. These are commonly disrupted and brecciated when the surface area of these crusts increases. In the subtidal environment, megapolygons form when cementation of the matrix causes the surface area of the hardgrounds to expand. Similar megapolygons form in the supratidal, lacustrine and subaerial settings when repeated incremental fracturing and fracture fill by sediment and/or cement also causes the area of the hardgrounds to expand. The arched up antiform margins of expansion megapolygons are known as tepees. The types of tepees found in the geological record include: (1) Submarine tepees which form in shallow carbonate-saturated waters where fractured and bedded marine grainstones are bound by isopachous marine-phreatic acicular and micritic cements. The surfaces of these brecciated crusts have undergone diagenesis and are bored. Unlike tepees listed below they contain no vadose pisolites or gravity cements; (2) Peritidal and lacustrine tepees are formed of crusts characterized by fenestral. pisolitic and laminar algal fabrics. This similarity in fabric makes these tepees of different origins difficult to separate. Peritidal tepees occur where the marine phreatic lens is close to the sediment surface and the climate is tropical. They are associated with fractured and bedded tidal flat carbonates. Their fracture fills contain geopetal asymmetric travertines of marine-vadose origin and/or marine phreatic travertines and/or Terra rossa sediments. The senile form of these peritidal tepees are cut by labyrinthic dissolution cavities filled by the same material. Lacustrine tepees form in the margins of shallow salinas where periodic groundwater resurgence is common. They include groundwater tepees which form over evaporitic ‘boxwork’ carbonates, and extrusion tepees which also form where periodic groundwater resurgence occurs at the margins of shallow salinas, but the dominant sediment type is carbonate mud. These latter tepee crusts are coated and crosscut by laminated micrite; the laminae extend from the fractures downward into the underlying dolomitic micrite below the crust. Both peritidal and lacustrine tepees form where crusts experience alternating phreatic and vadose conditions, in time intervals of days to years. Cement morphologies reflect this and the crusts often contain gravitational, meniscus vadose cements as well as phreatic isopachous cement rinds. (3) Caliche tepees which are developed within soil profiles in a continental setting. They are formed by laminar crusts which contain pisolites, and fractures filled by micritic laminae, microspar, spar and Terra rossa. Most of the cements are gravitational and/or meniscoid. In ancient carbonates, when their cementation and diagenetic fabric can be interpreted, tepee structures can be used as environmental indicators. They can also be used to trace the evolution of the depositional and hydrological setting.