Transfer During Diagenesis

Observations of natural systems have been subject to substantially different interpretations owing to the inherent complexity of these systems. There has been an unfortunate tendency to interpret observations using the popular hypothesis at a particular time in attempting to explain all such diagenesis. It should be kept in mind that just as there are many roads to heaven (or hell ), there are many pathways to thermodynamic stability. 

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Land L. S. (1997) Mass transfer during burial diagenesis in the Gulf of Mexico sedimentary basin an overview. Special Publication—SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology) 57, 29-39. 

Awwiller D. N. (1993) Illite/smectite formation and potassium transfer during burial diagenesis of mudrocks a study from the Texas Gulf Coast Paleocene-Eocene. J. Sedim. Petrol. 63, 501-512. 

Furlan S., Clauer N., Chauduri S., and Sommer F. (1996) K transfer during burial diagenesis in the Mahakam Delta basin (Kalimantan, Indonesia). Clays Clay Min. 44,157-199. 

Land L. S. (1997) Mass-transfer during burial diagenesis in the Gulf of Mexico sedimentary basin. In Basin-wide Diagenetic Patterns, SEPM Special Publication 57 (eds. I. Montanez, J. M. Gregg, and K. L. Shelton). Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM), Tulsa, OK, pp. 29-39. 

Fig. 4.15. Possible mechanism for mass transfer of silica (quartz) in moving pore fluids during diagenesis in reservoir sand units, a In fluids supplied by mechanical sediment dewatering and com-paction b in fluids by recharge from seawater c in fluids convecting within a sandstone sequence realizing SiOj of various origin including pressure soiution (from Wood and Hewett 1982)...

The notion that silica is transferred from shales to sandstones during late diagenesis (Towe, 1962) provides a mechanism to link the observed depth trends of at least three (possibly four) of the major diagenetic reactions listed in Table 1 (smectite dissolution, ilhte precipitation, quartz precipitation in sandstones, and quartz pressure solution in shales). Large-scale silica transfer is to be expected as fluids flow from regions of higher to lower temperature (Ferry and Dipple, 1991). 

FIGURE 2 Plot of Residence Time against the ratio of concentrations in average seawater to that in the upper continental crust, for selected elements. Elements with very low concentrations in seawater and very low residence times (e.g., REE, Th, Sc) are transferred nearly quantitatively into terrigenous sediments and thus record their distributions in the upper crustal provenance. Some elements with low residence times are less useful due to complex behavior during sediment transport (e.g., Zr, Hf, Sn) or diagenesis (e.g., Fe, Mn, Pb). 

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