Rapidity of marine carbonate cementation — implications for carbonate diagenesis and sequence stratigraphy: perspective

✍ Scribed by Gerald M Friedman

• Book ID: 104167297
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 468 KB
• Volume: 119
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0037-0738
• DOI: 10.1016/s0037-0738(98)00075-x

✦ Synopsis

Lithification is a rapid process, but how rapid is rapid? A year after one of my visits to Joulter's Cay (Bahamas) I found a sardine can from my previous visit. The cementation of carbonate particles in and around the can was surprising. 382 g of ooids and skeletal material had filled the can and lithified therein, or had become cemented to the outside of the can. The rapidity of marine carbonate cementation implies that during highstand of sea level shallow-water platform carbonate sediments are subject to marine lithification which retards erosion. This conclusion is at variance with that of other workers who rely on freshwater cementation during lowstands to generate cement which retards reworking. Clearly the historical debate over highstand versus lowstand of shallow-water marine carbonates is not yet over.