Diagenetic transformation of early Permian sepiolite and its relationship with coal metamorphism — An example in pingle depression and its vicinity,south China

Sepiolite phase-transformation has been successfully imitated in laboratory for many years, but no natural example has been reported yet. In this paper the authors intend to provide a good natural example in southern China, especially in the Pingle depression, where the Permian sepiolite has been generally converted to talc and minor stevensite (magnesium montmorillonite) due to anadiagenesis during post-sedimentation. In our opinion, the degree of transformation can be indicated by the degree of metamorphism of coal (rank of coal). In order to study the relationship between clay transformation and coal rank, the authors have proposed some parameters of coalification correlated with sepiolite conversion. It happens that volatile matter in the Permian coal comprises 30–52% and a vitrinite reflectance of approximately 0.4–0.8% (R°) is reliable to indicate the existence of sepiolite. The consideration that sepiolite phase-transformation has a linear relationship with the rank of coal can be justified on the trend surface analysis diagrams which show that the areas of lower coal rank are obviously consistent with the sepiolite-distributed areas. Therefore, there is such a possibility as to predict new occurrences of sepiolite on the basis of the distribution of the lower coal ranks.