Sedimentary and Geochemical Characteristics of Crystal Fan in the “Calcari a Lucina” Cold Seep Carbonate of Miocene in the Northern Apennines, Italy

Abstract

Abstract:

Crystal fan is a marked structure of cold seep carbonates, which consists of radial mineral aggregations, e.g., aragonite, barite. Numerous cold seep carbonates developed in the Miocene strata of the northern Apennines in Italy, and there were typical crystal fans in the “Calcari a Lucina” seep carbonate. These crystal fans consist of radial aragonite aggregations with minor calcite and clearly growth lamina. The δ13CPDB values of aragonite lamina of crystal fan are from -37.9‰ to -53.5‰, and the δ¹⁸OPDB values are from +2.4‰ to+6.0‰. The δ13CPDB and δ18OPDB values of the adjacent aragonite lamina are significant different, and it might be resulted from the sources of carbon and oxygen and the variation of seep flux. The content of rare earth elements (REE) of crystal fan carbonate is very low (0.23×10^-6), and shalenormalized REE patterns show significantly negative Ce anomaly, indicating that crystal fans were deposited in oxidation environment.

Key words: crystal fan, cold seep carbonate, sedimentary petrology, geochemistry, oxidation environment

CLC Number:

P736.4

HUANG Hua-Gu, DI peng-Fei, CHEN Ying-Ying, FENG Dong, CHEN DUO-Fu. Sedimentary and Geochemical Characteristics of Crystal Fan in the “Calcari a Lucina” Cold Seep Carbonate of Miocene in the Northern Apennines, Italy[J]. Geoscience, 2010, 24(3): 545-551.

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