Chertification in the Mississippian Lake Valley Formation, Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico |
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| Authors: | WILLIAM J MEYERS |
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| Institution: | Earth and Space Sciences Department, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794, U.S.A. |
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| Abstract: | Chert distribution in the Lake Valley rocks is selective to mud-supported facies; it is not related to proximity to unconformities. The facies selectivity of the chertification is believed to be a function of the depositional distribution of indigenous silica as sponge spicules, an interpretation that is supported by high positive qualitative correlation of chert with spiculitic rocks. Petrography indicates that the spicules were all originally siliceous, and that they all went through a moldic stage during which many molds were compactively destroyed and distorted. Remaining molds were subsequently cemented by calcite or chalcedony. Chert distribution and spicule petrography argue for an intraformational source for much of the silica. Chert micro-fabrics are dominated by microquartz, a replacement of grains and lime mud; length-fast chalcedony, a pore-filling cement; and megaquartz, a post-chalcedony pore-filling cement. Petrography of compaction features within chert masses indicates that chertification occurred after some burial. Based on stratigraphic reconstruction this burial depth was a maximum of about 215 m. and was most likely a few metres to a few tens of metres. Petrography of chert-calcite cement relationships indicates that chertification occurred before and during first generation, pre-Pennsylvanian non-ferroan calcite cementation, and was completed before late-stage, post-Mississippian ferroan calcite precipitation. Petrography of chert clasts in basal Rancheria (Meramecian) and basal Pennsylvanian conglomerates proves these clasts derived from the Lake Valley Formation and were chertified before redeposition. Thus, some cherts in the Lake Valley are pre-Meramecian in age, but all are pre-Pennsylvanian in age. Furthermore, association of the cherts with the non-ferroan cements indicates the cherts were probably precipitated in meteoric phreatic lens established beneath the pre-Meramecian and pre-Pennsylvanian subaerial unconformities. |
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