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Sedimentary Cycles in Coal and Evaporite Basins and the Reconstruction of Palaeozoic Climate Sedimentary cycles in coal and evaporite basins and the reconstruction of Palaeozoic climate F.J.G. van den Belt Utrecht Studies in Earth Sciences Mededelingen van de Faculteit Geowetenschappen Universiteit Utrecht No. 21 Members of the dissertation committee Prof. dr. S.A.P.L. Cloetingh Tectonics Research Group Department of Earth Sciences, University of Utrecht Prof. dr. C.G. Langereis Paleomagnetic Laboratory ‘Fort Hoofddijk’ Department of Earth Sciences, University of Utrecht Prof. dr. L.J. Lourens Stratigraphy and Palaeontology Research Group Department of Earth Sciences, University of Utrecht Prof. dr. F. Roure Institut Français du Pétrole Energies Nouvelles Rueil-Malmaison, France Prof. dr. M.E. Tucker School of Earth Sciences University of Bristol, United Kingdom ISBN 978-90-6266-307-1 Sedimentary cycles in coal and evaporite basins and the reconstruction of Palaeozoic climate, viii + 100 p., 6 tables, 43 illustrations. This is Publication 21 of Utrecht Studies in Earth Sciences. Copyright © 2012 F.J.G. van den Belt. All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be repro- duced in any form without prior permission of the author. Chapter 4 and 5 reproduced with kind permission of SEPM and IAS. Author contact details: F.J.G. van den Belt, Timmermeesterslaan 24, 8014 EL Zwolle, Netherlands E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] Printed by Wöhrmann Print Service (Zutphen) in an edition of 200 copies. Cover photo: Road cuts in the Middle Pennsylvanian Pikeville Fm. (Breathitt Group) near the town of Sidney, Kentucky (USA) along the westbound lane of US-119 between Pikeville (KY) and Williamson (WV). Coal-bearing facies in foreground comprise Upper Elkhorn no. 3 Sandstone, overlain by Up- per Elkhorn no. 3 coastal-plain succession, Elfins Fork Shale and Amburgy Sandstone; the overlying dark grey Kendrick Shale (Base Hyden Fm.) is visible at far right. Photo taken on 15 April 2012. Sedimentary cycles in coal and evaporite basins and the reconstruction of Palaeozoic climate Sedimentaire cycli in kool- en evaporietbekkens en de reconstructie van het klimaat tijdens het Paleozoïcum (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof.dr. G.J. van der Zwaan, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 12 oktober 2012 des middags te 16.15 uur door Franciscus Joannes Gerardus van den Belt geboren op 2 november 1969 te Zwolle Promotor: Prof. dr. P.L. de Boer Voor Heleen, Lucas en Mijntje Once you were tethered Now you are free That was the river This is the sea (M. Scott, 1985) CONTENTS Chapter 1 Introduction: Sedimentary cycles in coal and evaporite basins and the reconstruction of Palaeozoic climate 1 Chapter 2 Revealing the hidden Milankovitch record in Pennsylvanian cyclo- them sequences; inferences with respect to Late Palaeozoic chronology, glacio- eustasy and coal accumulation 3 Chapter 3 Fluvial-sandstone distribution controlled by fault-block tilting; a quantitative example from a Lower Pennsylvanian (Carboniferous) coal-bear- ing sequence, Poland 15 Chapter 4 Sedimentary architecture and palaeogeography of Lower Slochteren aeolian cycles from the Rotliegend desert-lake margin (Permian), the Markham area, Southern North Sea 29 Chapter 5 A shallow-basin model for ‘saline giants’ based on isostasy-driven subsidence 49 Chapter 6 An intra-basinal mechanism explaining marine-evaporite cyclicity controlled by sulphate platform progradation and isostatic correction 59 Chapter 7 A Palaeozoic climate chronology based on long-term size variations of evaporite basins 67 Chapter 8 Synthesis: Sedimentary cycles in coal and evaporite basins and the reconstruction of Palaeozoic climate (with special reference to the depositional history of NW Europe) 79 References 83 Samenvatting (summary in Dutch) 95 Dankwoord/Acknowledgments 97 About the author 99 Publications 100 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION : SEDIMENTARY CYCLES IN COAL AND EVAPORITE BASINS AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF PALAEOZOIC CLIMATE F.J.G. van den Belt The Palaeozoic era lasted from ~542 to ~251 has since long been attributed to glacio-eustatic Ma (Gradstein et al. 2004). Its beginning is sea-level fluctuations associated with widespread marked by the Cambrian explosion of life and southern-hemisphere glaciation during the Late its end by the greatest mass extinction in Earth Palaeozoic (Veevers and Powell 1987). Another history. Other mass-extinction events occurred glaciation occurred during the Ordovician-Silu- at the end of the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian rian, but it predates the rise of land plants (Davies and Devonian (Raup and Sepkoski 1982). The and Gibling 2010). only boundary that is not associated with a mass The three main phases of evaporite precipita- extinction is the Carboniferous to Permian tran- tion occurred during greenhouse periods and sition. However, at that time a major floral reor- are (largely) out of phase with the two Palaeozoic ganization took place with ‘coal swamps’ relocat- glacial episodes. Only during the Permian, glacial ing from equatorial positions to high latitudes conditions were contemporaneous with wide- concurrent with equatorial drying (DiMichele et spread evaporite deposition (Frakes et al. 1992). al. 2001). In this thesis the focus is on evaporites and coal- Besides this evolutionary punctuation, the bearing rocks as the sedimentary reflections of Palaeozoic periods were characterized by cer- two climate extremes: greenhouse and icehouse. tain dominant modes of sedimentation (Stanley At the same time it chronologically discusses the 1986). For instance, shallow-water carbonates Late Palaeozoic depositional history of north- are very common in the Cambrian rock record western Europe: from coal-bearing fluvio-deltaic and Ordovician-Silurian rocks are at many places deposition during the Late Carboniferous (Penn- characterized by marine (black) shales of deeper- sylvanian) followed by aeolian-dune and desert- water origin. lake deposition in a continental, proto-evaporite Evaporite deposits occur throughout the Pal- basin during the Early Permian (Rotliegend) to aeozoic. They are abundant in Cambrian, De- evaporite precipiation in a restricted marine ba- vonian and Permian rocks and rare in the inter- sin during the Late Permian (Zechstein). vening Ordovician, Silurian and Carboniferous (Zharkov 1981). Coal-bearing rocks are present Sedimentary cycles in coal and evaporite ba- from the Middle Devonian onwards, which is re- sins lated to the evolution of land plants during the The strata in coal and evaporite basins are both Silurian-Devonian (Davies and Gibling 2010). characterized by distinct sedimentary cyclicity, Coals are abundant in Upper Carboniferous although on a different scale. Coal-clastic cycles, strata in basins along the palaeoequator, and are also known as ‘cyclothems’, are metre- to deca- common throughout the Permian as well. These metre-scale alternations of (marginal) marine Permian coals were formed at high latitudes shales and terrestrial shales, sands and coal beds (Michaelsen and Henderson 2000). (Weller 1930, Greb et al. 2008). These cycles have Both the evolutionary and the sedimentologi- since long been attributed to glacio-eustatic sea- cal history of the Palaeozoic point at a strong in- level fluctuations in the Milankovitch frequency fluence of climate (Frakes et al. 1992, Davies and band (Veevers and Powell 1987, Klein and Wil- Gibling 2010) with major climate changes mark- lard 1989), but orbital control has not been un- ing the period boundaries. The abundance of ambiguously demonstrated and remains to be coal during the Late Carboniferous and Permian challenged (Wilkinson et al. 2003). 1 Sedimentary cycles in coal and evaporite basins Evaporite cycles are thicker and less numer- tive analysis of sediment distribution is used to ous than coal cycles. They are typically a few tens unravel how tectonics influenced sedimentation. to hundreds of metres thick and comprise pre- Chapter 4 deals with the origin of gas-bearing cipitation successions of calcium sulphate (gyp- aeolian cycles from the ‘proto-evaporite’ Rot- sum/anhydrite), followed by halite and various liegend (Permian) Basin. The cycles formed at ‘potash’ salts (Hardie 1991, Kendall 1992). The the margin of a hypersaline lake, that contracted origin of such cycles is still debated, partly be- and expanded repeatedly. The internal architec- cause there are no present-day analogues. They ture and the thickness of these cycles is related to are variably attributed to glacio-eustatic sea level the infilling of palaeotopography overprinted by (Tucker 1991, Warren 2010) and tectonic events climate-controlled lake-level changes. (Benson 1972, Krijgsman et al. 1999). Chapter 5 deals with the role of isostatic sub- sidence in evaporite basins. Such basins are typi- Overview of this thesis cally viewed as very deep, dried-out basins. In- This thesis deals with sedimentary cycles in corporation of isostatic subsidence in response to coal basins (chapter 2 and 3), and sedimentary the (very fast) precipitation of salts suggests that cycles in evaporite basins (chapters 4-6). In the deposition occurred in much shallower, non- final chapter 7 coal and especially evaporite dep- desiccated basins. osition throughout the Palaeozoic era are studied Chapter 6 describes an alternative model to in an attempt to analyse their relation with large- explain evaporite-cycle formation, which is scale
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