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Non-Actualistic Carbonate Deposystems: Revising The Carbonate Factory-Depth Paradigm*
By
Giovanna Della Porta1, Jeroen A.M. Kenter2, and Paul M. (Mitch) Harris3
Search and Discovery Article #40290 (2008)
Posted July 15, 2008
*Adapted from oral presentation at AAPG Annual Convention, Long Beach, CA, April 1-4, 2007.
1Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK ([email protected])
2Chevron Energy and Technology Company, Voorburg, The Netherlands ([email protected])
3Chevron Energy Technology Company, San Ramon, CA ([email protected])
Non-actualistic (e.g., deviating from depositional models developed for recent deposystems) carbonate platforms are not the exception in the geologic record because of the wide range of biological and environmental factors controlling facies character and architecture.
A fundamental concept is the exponential decrease of carbonate production with increasing water depth from a maximum at shallow depths to the base of the photic zone. However, when the dominant factory is microbially induced, high rates of carbonate production extend on the slope down to dys-/aphotic depths and new production-water depth profiles must be developed.
Studies of Carboniferous (Asturias, Pricaspian Basin) and Permian (Capitan Reef) high-relief carbonate platforms have shown that the microbial-boundstone production extends to 300m water depth: 1) the detrital lower slope consists mostly of matrix-free cemented rudstone sourced by the slope boundstone with subordinated platform-top-derived material; 2) carbonate production on the slope is controlled by environmental parameters (temperature, nutrients, oxygenation) that are water-depth dependent, but the microbial boundstone response to relative sea-level changes differs from modern reefs; 3) carbonate growth is not seriously reduced during sea-level falls because it can continue downslope, 4) progradation can take place at high rates despite the lack of platform-top shedding (slope vs. highstand shedding); 5) concepts of leeward progradational vs. windward aggradational margins have to be revised. Paleozoic high-relief platforms with microbial boundstone-dominated margins seem to have developed in mesotrophic, starved restricted basins with oxygen-depleted bottom waters that would not be suitable settings for the recent coral-reef rimmed platforms.
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Depositional models based on the Recent need to be revised for margins with microbial cement boundstone or coral-microbial associations.
The “model”provided for progradational, high relief microbial platform margins might be considered for other areas and times. ……But many aspects of the microbial boundstone precipitation, cementation, and slope processes remain poorly understood. For interpretation, modeling and prediction we need a better understanding of types, rates and the environmental controls of the “microbial” factories.
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Many thanks to V. Paul Wright, Cardiff University, UK, KlaasVerwer, Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands, Juan R. Bahamonde, Universidad de Oviedo, Spain, Oscar Merino-Tomé, Cardiff University, UK.
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