Meteoric-Marine Regime

Plate tectonics is a major driving force affecting Earth s surface environment. The kind and intensity of the physico-chemical parameters that control diagenetic pathways are determined to some degree directly or indirectly by plate tectonic processes. The plate tectonic environment exerts a direct control on diagenesis, whereas changes in Earth s surface chemistry induced by changes in 

Under the modest temperature and pressure conditions characteristic of the environments in which meteoric diagenesis typically takes place, many of the most important reactions are slow. This has severely constrained the study of the chemical mechanisms and kinetics involved in such fundamental processes as the aragonite to calcite transformation and dolomite formation. Information on these processes obtained under conditions not typical of the meteoric realm (e.g., elevated temperatures) are of questionable applicability to real world carbonate diagenesis. 

Kinetic and thermodynamic considerations show that the mass transfer leading to extensive alteration of carbonates in the meteoric realm is difficult to account for by transport of chemical components over long distances. This conclusion has important implications for the formation of regionally-distributed cements in carbonate rocks. These implications and further problems of mass transfer are subjects of the next chapter. 

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