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The System Controlling the Composition of Clastic Sediments Downloaded from specialpapers.gsapubs.org on September 25, 2013 Geological Society of America Special Papers The system controlling the composition of clastic sediments Mark J. Johnsson Geological Society of America Special Papers 1993;284; 1-20 doi:10.1130/SPE284-p1 E-mail alerting services click www.gsapubs.org/cgi/alerts to receive free e-mail alerts when new articles cite this article Subscribe click www.gsapubs.org/subscriptions to subscribe to Geological Society of America Special Papers Permission request click www.geosociety.org/pubs/copyrt.htm#gsa to contact GSA. Copyright not claimed on content prepared wholly by U.S. government employees within scope of their employment. Individual scientists are hereby granted permission, without fees or further requests to GSA, to use a single figure, a single table, and/or a brief paragraph of text in subsequent works and to make unlimited copies of items in GSA's journals for noncommercial use in classrooms to further education and science. This file may not be posted to any Web site, but authors may post the abstracts only of their articles on their own or their organization's Web site providing the posting includes a reference to the article's full citation. GSA provides this and other forums for the presentation of diverse opinions and positions by scientists worldwide, regardless of their race, citizenship, gender, religion, or political viewpoint. Opinions presented in this publication do not reflect official positions of the Society. Notes © 1993 Geological Society of America Citations This article has been cited by 1 HighWire-hosted articles: Downloaded from specialpapers.gsapubs.orghttp://specialpapers.gsapubs.org/content/284/1#otherarticles on September 25, 2013 Geological Society of America Special Paper 284 1993 The system controlling the composition of clastic sediments Mark J. Johnsson* U.S. Geological Survey, 345 Middlefield Road, MS 999, Menlo Park, California 94025 ABSTRACT The composition of clastic sediments and rocks is controlled by a complex suite of parameters operating during pedogenesis, erosion, transport, deposition, and burial. The principal first-order parameters include source rock composition, modification by chem- ical weathering, mechanical disaggregation and abrasion, authigenic inputs, hydrody- namic sorting, and diagenesis. Each of these first-order parameters is influenced to varying degrees by such factors as the tectonic settings of the source region, transporta- tional system and depositional environment, climate, vegetation, relief, slope, and the nature and energy of transportational and depositional systems. These factors are not independent; rather a complicated web of interrelationships and feedback mechanisms causes many factors to be modulated by others. Accordingly, processes controlling the composition of clastic sediments are best viewed as constituting a system, and in evaluat- ing compositional information the dynamics of the system must be considered as whole. INTRODUCTION Sedimentary rocks are our principal sources of information utilized as clues to their source regions. Compositional data concerning past conditions on the Earth's surface. Clastic rocks have been used to chart orogenic progression, unroofing, and may preserve detritus from orogenic settings now obscured by most recently, plate tectonic evolution. tectonic overprinting, dismemberment or erosion. At times, the The composition of clastic materials does not, however, composition of such clastic materials provides the only available correlate on a one-to-one basis with source rock composition, clues to the composition of long-eroded source rocks, and thus is implying that factors other than source rock composition also are an invaluable tool in paleogeologic reconstructions. Indeed, clas- important in determining the ultimate composition of clastic sed- tic sediments provide us with our only windows into Earth's iments. During the formation of clastic rocks, material passes earliest past—the oldest geologic materials on Earth are detrital through several evolutionary stages, including pedogenesis, ero- zircons from Archean sandstones (Compston et al., 1985; Comp- sion, transport, deposition, and burial. Processes acting on sedi- ston and Pidgeon, 1986; Liu et al, 1992; Mueller et al, 1992). ment composition during this evolution include chemical Accordingly, there is a long history of the use of composi- weathering, physical breakdown, abrasion, hydrodynamic sort- tional data from clastic sediments to evaluate the nature of the ing, modification by authigenic inputs and, in the case of lithified terranes from which they were derived. This history extends back sedimentary rocks, burial diagenesis. Erosion and sedimentation to the time of Hutton, who concluded that "if this part of the are essentially partitioning processes whereby the components of earth which we now inhabit had been produced, in the course of the source rock are differentially preserved. If the materials time, from the materials of a former earth, we should, in the eroded from a group of source rocks were in physical and chemi- examination of our land, find data from which to reason, with cal equilibrium, then their proportions in the resulting sediment regard to the nature of that world . ." (Hutton, 1785, p. 23). In would be dictated merely by their abundance in the source rocks the ensuing two centuries, hundreds of studies have been under- and by hydrodynamic sorting effects operating during transport taken in which clastic rocks, particularly sandstones, have been and deposition. However, mineral phases differ in chemical and physical stability and accordingly are modified by physical and chemical weathering in different ways. The effects of physical and chemical weathering processes are in turn controlled by such •Present address: Department of Geology, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, parameters as climate and relief of source terrain, distance of Pennsylvania 19010-2899. Johnsson, M. J., 1993, The system controlling the composition of clastic sediments, in Johnsson, M. J., and Basu, A, eds., Processes Controlling the Composition of Clastic Sediments: Boulder, Colorado, Geological Society of America Special Paper 284. 1 2 M. J. Johnsson transport, time spent in transport, and energy of the transporta- tion analysis. Chemical data of individual phases are commonly tional and depositional environments. Finally, the sediment is acquired through use of the electron microprobe, backscatter likely to experience further compositional modification during scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive spectral analysis diagenesis. All of these factors, rarely easily separated, are impor- and, indirectly, through cathodoluminescence. Finally, "composi- tant in establishing the composition of clastic sediments. tion" may be taken broadly to include detailed information Modifications that occur during transport and deposition about sediment components, such as varieties of quartz grains, tend to obscure information regarding parent materials, but U-Pb dating of individual zircon grains, and stable isotope signa- may, at the same time, provide a wealth of information concern- tures of the bulk sediment. ing the environment in which sediment was formed. Modifica- Effects of methods tions subsequent to deposition may provide clues to the diagenetic environment of a sedimentary basin. For these reasons, While between-sample variations can be adequately de- the processes modifying sediment composition both prior to and scribed by any definition of composition, comparisons among following deposition are currently the focus of much interest, and data sets require scrupulous attention to the methods employed in a picture is beginning to emerge relating sediment composition to collecting compositional data (Zuffa, 1985). This is particularly environmental conditions in addition to source rocks. An under- important when applying previously derived provenance models standing of these processes and how they interact is desirable for to new data sets (Ingersoll, 1990). the development of more refined provenance interpretation Irrespective of other factors affecting overall sediment com- schemes, to provide a basis for evaluating past environmental position, composition is strongly correlated with grain size. Ob- conditions, and to evaluate the roles of erosion and sedimentation viously, shales and sandstones derived under identical conditions within the tectonic and hydrologie cycles. The goal of this paper from identical source rocks are markedly different in composition is to provide an overview of the system regulating the composi- simply because clay minerals make up the bulk of finer grain sizes tion of clastic materials and to suggest potential feedback mecha- and detritus consisting principally of primary minerals is found in nisms operating within that system. coarser fractions. More subtle is the effect of grain size within the sand fraction; numerous studies have demonstrated a strong de- CONCEPTUAL BASELINE pendence of sand composition on grain size (e.g., Fiichtbauer, 1964; Boggs, 1968; Odom et al„ 1976; Basu, 1985a; Cather and What is composition? Folk, 1991; Savage and Potter, 1991). Since grain-size effects can obscure meaningful trends in Sediment composition can be defined in many ways, de- samples, a means of normalizing for grain size must be achieved if pending on the nature of the sediment and on the questions samples are to be compared. In unconsolidated sands, normaliza- addressed by the
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