Petrology of a Jurassic cold seep carbonate mound, Great Valley Group, northern California

Conference · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1992 · Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States)

OSTI ID:5767701

Campbell, K A; Bottjer, D J ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (United States). Dept. of Geological Sciences

Ancient sites of chemosynthetic marine invertebrate communities have been increasingly described from the stratigraphic record. Fossil cold seeps are best identified by the stratigraphically restricted co-occurrence of anomalous carbonates and fossils of organisms that in modern environments are chemosymbiotic. A Late Jurassic (Tithonian) age fossil seep site is preserved in deep-water turbidites of the Stony Creek Formation (Great Valley Group). Two low-relief carbonate mounds contain an abundant and diverse fossil macrofauna including taxa whose modern counterparts are chemosymbiotic, as well as several associate taxa. Two broad carbonate fabric types are present: a bioturbated, peloidal, fossiliferous micrite with abundant flecks of organic matter and several wavy laminated marine cements. The micrite and cements are either irregularly interlayered on distinctly separated by corrosion surfaces coated with iron oxides that may mark pulses of H[sub 2]S-rich fluids to the seep. Petrographic observations indicate the following idealized paragenetic sequence: deposition of micrite, with contemporaneous biotic activity; corrosion event, with preferential preservation of some peloids; precipitation of pyrite on some corrosion surfaces and concentration of insoluble siltstone linings where corrosion has opened vugs; precipitation of blocky yellow calcite cement with organic-rich inclusions in void spaces and around peloids; growth of clear to gray, botryoidal to fibrous cement; and precipitation of late, clear calcite spar. Similar fabrics and abundant tube-like structures are present in another Great Valley carbonate lens of Early Cretaceous (Albian-Aptian) age exposed on the Cold Fork of Cottonwood Creek near Red Bluff, California. Detailed integration of petrological studies of these fabrics with stable isotope studies and fossil faunal distributions provide a powerful approach for understanding the history of development and individual fossil seeps.

• OSTI ID: 5767701
• Report Number(s): CONF-921058--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States) Journal Volume: 24:7
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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58 GEOSCIENCES
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CALIFORNIA
CARBONATE ROCKS
DEPOSITION
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
GEOLOGIC AGES
GEOLOGIC HISTORY
GEOLOGIC STRUCTURES
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JURASSIC PERIOD
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SEDIMENTARY ROCKS
SEEPS
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