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AbstractChalks originate as Cretaceous to Recent pelagic or hemipelagic calcareous ooze, which indurate via burial diagenesis to chalk and limestone. Because they accumulate in pelagic settings with high environmental continuity, chalks may form thick formations and even groups. For this reason, and because chalks have a simple mineralogy (low magnesium calcite, silica and clays), they are ideal for the study of diagenetic processes including the depth‐related decrease of porosity. It is the aim of this study to illustrate how the evaluation of in situ elastic strain can help in understanding these processes including the interplay between stress‐controlled diagenetic processes and processes furthered by thermal energy. Petrophysical core and well data can be used for analyses of how porosity reduction via pore collapse and pressure dissolution is related to in situ elastic strain. The data in question are: depth, density of overburden, pore pressure, ultrasonic P‐wave velocity and dry density/porosity. The analysis reveals that the transition from ooze to chalk is associated with high elastic strain and consequent pressure dissolution at calcite–particle contacts causing contact cementation. The transition from chalk to limestone is also associated with high elastic strain, especially at clay–calcite interphases causing development of stylolites via pressure dissolution, and consequent pore‐filling cementation. Following each transformation the elastic strain drops rapidly. The observation of this diagenesis‐related pattern in elastic strain of the sedimentary rock is novel and should not only be helpful in understanding the porosity development in sedimentary basins, but also add basic scientific insight.

AbstractThis paper explores little investigated diagenesis of spicule‐dominated sediments, based on Permian spiculites and cool‐water carbonates of the Tempelfjorden Group in central Spitsbergen. Field observations, petrography, stable isotope geochemistry, and mineralogical and chemical analyses reveal that the strata have been subjected to multistage diagenesis as the result of silica phase transitions at medium burial depths and deep‐burial overprinting. The growth of silica concretions occurred during the opal‐A/opal‐CT conversion and was controlled by the content and distribution of clay and spicules in the sediment, resulting in a variety of megascopic silica fabrics. Opal‐CT was subsequently dissolved, and all silica is now in a stable quartz stage. Petrographically, the rocks are characterized by a variety of chalcedony and quartz cements which perfectly preserve precursor textures. Most cements precipitated from silica‐oversaturated fluids, and their shapes reflect the silica saturation state and geometry of the pore space. Some microquartz and cryptoquartz also formed by a solid–solid inversion (recrystallization) of chalcedony. The cements have δ18O values between +30‰ and +20‰ Standard Mean Ocean Water and display a systematic depletion in 18O from the first to the last crystallized, interpreted to reflect a gradual increase in temperature during burial. The precipitation of quartz cements started in the Middle Triassic when the strata passed the 19°C isotherm at burial depths of ca 600 m, and was completed in the mid‐Cretaceous, 2·3 km beneath the sea floor at temperatures of 75°C. Late diagenetic overprinting of the chert includes fracturing, brecciation and cementation with carbonate cements having δ18O values between +2‰ and −30‰ Pee Dee Belemnite and δ13C values between +4‰ and −14‰ Pee Dee Belemnite; they are linked to hot solutions introduced during Cretaceous volcanism or Palaeogene tectonism. This study illustrates the diagenetic pathway during burial of spicule‐rich sediments in a closed system and thereby provides a baseline for studies of more complexly altered chert deposits.

Despite its assumed global nature, there are very few detailed stratigraphic records of the late Cenomanian to the early Turonian Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 from the Southern Hemisphere. A highly resolved record of environmental changes across the Cenomanian–Turonian boundary interval is presented from Ocean Drilling Program Site 1138 on the central Kerguelen Plateau (southern Indian Ocean). The new data lead to three key observations. Firstly, detailed biostratigraphy and chemostratigraphy indicate that the record of Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 is not complete, with a hiatus spanning the onset of the event. A decrease in glauconite and highly weathered clays after the onset of Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 marks the end of the hiatus interval, which can be explained by a relative sea-level rise that increased sediment accommodation space on the Kerguelen Plateau margin. This change in depositional environment controlled the timing of the delayed peak in organic-matter burial during Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 at Site 1138 compared with other Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 locations worldwide. A second key observation is the presence of cyclic fluctuations in the quantity and composition of organic matter being buried on the central Kerguelen Plateau throughout the latter stages of Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 and the early Turonian. A close correspondence between organic matter, sedimentary elemental compositions and sediments recording sea-floor oxygenation suggests that the cycles were mainly productivity-driven phenomena. Available age-control points constrain the periodicity of the coupled changes in sedimentary parameters to ca 15 to 50 ka, suggesting a link between carbon burial and astronomically forced climatic variations (precession or obliquity) in the Southern Hemisphere mid-latitudes both during, and after, Oceanic Anoxic Event 2: fluctuations that were superimposed on the impact of global-scale processes. Finally, trace-metal data from the non-sulphidic black shale unit at Site 1138 provide the first evidence from outside of the proto-North Atlantic region for a global drawdown of seawater trace-metal (Mo) inventories during Oceanic Anoxic Event 2. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

AbstractDetrital glaucony in the Palaeogene glauconitic sandstones in Siri Canyon, Danish North Sea, has been analysed from 15 exploration wells by X‐ray diffraction, electron microprobe and scanning electron microscopy. These sandstones consist of mixed‐layer illite/smectite and have a large variability in chemical composition and structure. In the most shallow wells (ca 1700 m), the glaucony is rich in Fe and consists of mixed‐layer illite/smectite with random‐interstratification (R = 0). In the depth interval from 1700 to 2000 m, the composition changes as Si is incorporated. The structure changes to ordered R = 1. Further increase in burial leads to the loss of Fe. Ordered R = 3 mixed‐layer illite/smectite is recognized from burial depths of 2200 m. The proportion of illite in illite/smectite mixed layers increases only slightly with depth and temperature. Although the structural changes generally are associated with chemical changes, they can also take place isochemically when the detrital glaucony is tightly embedded in earlier cement, which prevented chemical exchange. The glaucony transformation in the Siri Canyon sandstones partly reflects a supply of Si and partly significant loss of Fe. Thus, the glaucony transformation relates to the general diagenesis of the host sandstone. These sandstones are cemented by microquartz at an early stage, followed by precipitation of Fe‐rich grain‐coating berthierine or chlorite.

AbstractDolomitization is commonly associated with crustal‐scale faults, but tectonic rejuvenation, diagenetic overprinting and a fluid and Mg mass‐imbalance often makes it difficult to determine the dolomitization mechanism. This study considers differential dolomitization of the Eocene Thebes Formation on the Hammam Faraun Fault block, Gulf of Suez, which has undergone a simple history of burial and exhumation as a result of rifting. Stratabound dolostone bodies occur selectively within remobilized sediments (debrites and turbidites) in the lower Thebes Formation and extend into the footwall of, and for up to 2 km away from, the Hammam Faraun Fault. They are offset by the north–south trending Gebel fault, which was active during the earliest phases of rifting, suggesting that dolomitization occurred between rift initiation (26 Ma) and rift climax (15 Ma). Geochemical data suggest that dolomitization occurred from evaporated (ca 1·43 concentration) seawater at less than ca 80°C. Geothermal convection is interpreted to have occurred as seawater was drawn down surface‐breaching faults into the Nubian sandstone aquifer, convected and discharged into the lower Thebes Formation via the Hammam Faraun Fault. Assuming a ca 10 Myr window for dolomitization, a horizontal velocity of ca 0·7 m year−1 into the Thebes Formation is calculated, with fluid flux and reactivity likely to have been facilitated by fracturing. Although fluids were at least marginally hydrothermal, stratabound dolostone bodies do not contain saddle dolomite and there is no evidence of hydrobrecciation. This highlights how misleading dolostone textures can be as a proxy for the genesis and spatial distribution of such bodies in the subsurface. Overall, this study provides an excellent example of how fluid flux may occur during the earliest phases of rifting, and the importance of crustal‐scale faults on fluid flow from the onset of their growth. Furthermore, this article presents a mechanism for dolomitization from seawater that has none of the inherent mass balance problems of classical, conceptual models of hydrothermal dolomitization.

AbstractDrowning unconformities are a frequent feature of carbonate platforms and generally express the incapacity of shallow‐marine ecosystems to adapt to abrupt sea‐level rise and/or palaeoenvironmental change. During the late Hauterivian and early Barremian, the Helvetic carbonate platform experienced a major drowning phase documented by the phosphate and glauconite‐rich Altmann Member. It has been shown that a drowning unconformity in the form of a hardground at the base of the Altmann Member on the Pilatus summit (central Switzerland) results from a complex, polyphased diagenetic history that includes two main phases of phosphogenesis. Using carbon‐isotope stratigraphy, biostratigraphy and sequence stratigraphy, the correlation of this drowning unconformity from the Helvetic domain with more distal and more complete sedimentary archives allows reconstruction of the sequence‐stratigraphic context of the drowning surface, and also an estimation of the amount of time represented by the episodes of condensation. Unconformities associated with the Altmann Member drowning phase developed during transgressive episodes, when strong currents arrived onto the previously subaerially exposed platform, and periods of phosphogenesis may have lasted up to 2·8 Myr. Variations in trophic levels and hitherto less well‐known intervening emersion phases played an essential triggering role for the Altmann drowning phase. High‐resolution studies of drowning unconformities unravel the diversity of palaeoenvironmental parameters involved in the unfolding of such crises during the evolution of carbonate platforms.

AbstractMicrotexture describes the type of particles and their arrangement in matrix samples at scanning electron microscopy scale. Although a microtexture classification exists for micritic limestone, it cannot be directly applied to chalk. This study therefore proposes a classification of chalk microtextures and discusses the origin of microtexture variability. Chalk was sampled at thirteen spatio‐temporal locations along the coastline of northern France (Cenomanian–Santonian). Four criteria are defined to describe, characterize and determine chalk matrix microtexture: (i) mineralogical content; (ii) biogenic fraction; (iii) micritic fraction; and (iv) cement fraction. From these criteria, two major groups are defined: Pure Chalk Microtexture Group, with seven classes, and Impure Chalk Microtexture Group, divided into two subgroups: Argillaceous Microtexture with four classes and Siliceous Microtexture with two classes. Microtexture variability is related both to initial sedimentation and to diagenesis. Sedimentological conditions (for example, climate and distance from shore) affect chalk composition (carbonate content and type of insoluble particles), thus influencing microtexture. Changes in Pure Chalk Microtexture are the result of increasing diagenetic intensity. This classification can also be used to characterize the microtexture of subsurface chalk reservoirs. Reservoir quality depends on the petrophysical and mechanical properties of reservoir rocks, which can be better understood by exploring their sedimentary and diagenetic history, revealed by the study of chalk microtexture variability.