Sedimentology and Geochemistry of Modern and Ancient Saline Lakes

SEDIMENTOLOGY AND GEOCHEMISTRY OF MODERN AND ANCIENT SALINE LAKES

Based on a Symposium Sponsored by SEPM Society for Sedimentary Geology

Edited by

Robin W Renaut University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon Canada and William M Last University of Manitoba Winnipeg Canada Copyright 1994 by SEPM Society for Sedimentary Geology Peter A Scholle Editor of Special Publications Special Publication No 50 Tulsa Oklahoma U S A September 1994

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SEPM SOCIETY FOR SEDIMENTARY GEOLOGY

ISBN 1 56576 014 X

@ 1994 by SEPM Society for Sedimentary Geology P O Box 4756 Tulsa Oklahoma 74131

Printed in the United States of America

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION SALT LAKE SEDIMENTOLOGY AND GEOCHEMISTRY INTRODUCTION AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE Robin W Renaut and William M Last v

I MODERN SALINE LAKES

THE CHEMICAL EVOLUTION OF THE BRINES OF CHOTT EL DJERID SOUTHERN TUNISIA AFTER AN EXCEPTIONAL RAINFALL EVENT IN JANUARY 1990 Robert G Bryant Nick A Drake Andrew C Millington and Bruce W Sellwood 3 SULFATE REDUCTION RATES IN MICROBIAL MAT SEDIMENTS OF DIFFERING CHEMISTRIES IMPLICATIONS FOR ORGANIC CARBON PRESERVATION IN SALINE LAKES W Berry Lyons Mark E Hines William M Last and Robert M Lent 13 BOTTOM SEDIMENT CHEMISTRY IN DEVILS LAKE NORTHEAST NORTH DAKOTA Stephen C Komor 21 ON THE MEASUREMENT OF REACTIVE MASS FLUXES IN EVAPORATIVE GROUNDWATER SOURCE LAKES Joseph J Donovan 33 DEEP WATER EVAPORITE MINERAL FORMATION IN LAKES OF WESTERN CANADA William M Last 51 PRECIPITATION OF SALTS FROM Mg2 Na SO CI PLAYA LAKE BRINES THE ENDORHEIC SALINE PONDS OF LA MANCHA CENTRAL SPAIN Salvador Ordonez Sergio Sanchez Moral Maria De Los Angeles Garcia Del Cura and Eduardo Rodriguez Badiola 61 SEDIMENTARY FEATURES PRODUCED BY EFFLORESCENT SALT CRUSTS SALINE VALLEY AND DEATH VALLEY CALIFORNIA Joseph P Smoot and Barbara Castens Seidell 73 SEASONAL EVAPORITE SEDIMENTATION IN DESERT PLAYA LAKES OF THE KARINGA CREEK DRAINAGE SYSTEM CENTRAL AUSTRALIA Aro V Arakel and Tien Hongjun 91 LAKE BOGORIA KENYA RIFT VALLEy A SEDIMENTOLOGICAL OVERVIEW Robin W Renaut and Jean Jacques Tiercelin 101 PLAYA SEDIMENTOLOGY AND GEOMORPHOLOGY MIXTURE MODELLING ApPLIED TO LANDSAT THEMATIC MAPPER DATA OF CHOTT EL DJERID TUNISIA Nick A Drake Robert G Bryant Andrew C Millington and John R G Townshend 125

II QUATERNARY SALINE LAKES

HOLOCENE SEDIMENTS OF THE CRATER LAKE AT MALHA NORTHWESTERN SUDAN Florias Mees and Nigel Rcihardson 135 HOLOCENE FLUCTUATIONS OF MONO LAKE CALIFORNIA THE SEDIMENTARY RECORD Mark S Newton 143 PALEOENVIRONMENTAL IMPLICATIONS OF LACUSTRINE CLAY MINERALS FROM THE DOUBLE LAKES FORMATION SOUTHERN HIGH PLAINS TEXAS Daniel M Webster and Blair F Jones 159 STRATIGRAPHY AND HOLOCENE HISTORY OF LAKE HAYWARD SWAN COASTAL PLAIN WETLANDS WESTERN AUSTRALIA Lee Cosh ell and Michael R Rosen 173 THE EVOLUTION OF SALINE LAKES IN THE RELICT DRAINAGE OF THE YILGARN RIVER WESTERN AUSTRALIA Ramsis B Salama 189

III ANCIENT SALINE LAKES

MIOCENE GLAUBERITE DEPOSITS OF ALCANADRE EBRO BASIN SPAIN SEDIMENTARY AND DIAGENETIC PROCESSES Josep M Salvany and Federico Ortl 203 TERTIARY DETRITAL GYPSUM IN THE MADRID BASIN SPAIN CRITERIA FOR INTERPRETING DETRITAL GYPSUM IN CONTINENTAL EVAPORITIC SEQUENCES Marla Esther Sanzo Juan Pablo RodrIguez Aranda Jose Pedro Calvo and Salvador Ordonez 217 DEPOSITION AND DIAGENESIS OF SODIUM CALCIUM SULFATE SALTS IN THE TERTIARY SALINE LAKES OF THE MADRID BASIN SPAIN Salvador Ordonez and Maria De Los Angeles Garcia Del Cura 229 EOCENE FOSSIL LAKE GREEN RIVER FORMATION WYOMING A HISTORY OF FLUCTUATING SALINITY H Paul Buchheim 239 THE JURASSIC EAST BERLIN FORMATION HARTFORD BASIN NEWARK SUPERGROUP CONNECTICUT AND MASSACHUSETTS A SALINE LAKE PLAYA ALLUVIAL PLAIN SYSTEM Elizabeth Gierlowski Kordesch and Brian R Rust 249 PERMIAN SALINE LAKES IN THE ARAG6N BEARN BASIN WESTERN PYRENEES Bias L Valero Garces and Josep Gisbert Aguilar 267

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IV ANCIENT SALT LAKE MARINE SYSTEMS

THE EVOLUTION OF AN INLAND SEA OF MARINE ORIGIN TO A NON MARINE SALINE LAKE THE PENNSYLVANIAN PARADOX SALT Sherilyn Williams Stroud 293 THE SEDIMENTOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF CHEVRON HALITE A REAPPRAISAL Donald Chipley and T Kurtis Kyser 307 RELATIONSHIP OF ORGANIC GEOCHEMISTRY TO SEDIMENTATION UNDER HIGHLY VARIABLE ENVIRONMENTS LORCA BASIN SPAIN PRELIMINARY RESULTS Said Benalioulhaj B Charlotte Schreiber and R Paul Philp 315 SUBJECT INDEX 327

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ROBIN W RENAUT Department ofGeological Sciences University ofSaskatchewan Saskatoon Canada S7N OWO

AND

WILLIAM M LAST Department of Geological Sciences University of Manitoba Winnipeg Canada R3T 2N2

INTRODUCTION passing reference in such preeminent monographs and ed ited volumes as Chemical Processes in Lakes Stumm 1985 This volume of papers grew out of a four day symposium Lake Sediments and Environmental History Haworth and entitled Sedimentary and Paleolimnological Records of Lund 1984 Principles of Lake Sedimentology Hakans n Saline Lakes held at Saskatoon Canada in August 1991 and Jansson 1983 and Limnology Wetzel 1983 ThIS The meeting was held as a Canadian contribution to Proj past lack of attention is somewhat surprising considering ects 219 and 324 ofthe International Geological Correlation the widespread occurrence of modem saline lakes and the This international conference co Programme sponsored by fact that the volume of inland salt water is the Canadian National Committee of the International Geo approximately equal to that of freshwater lakes and rivers Williams 1986 Correlation CNC IGCP and the Na logical Programme Hammer 1986 tional Hydrology Research Institute Environment Canada This neglect is currently changing Approximately IO O attracted nearly 100 participants from a dozen countries and papers reports and postgraduate theses on the general tOpiC covered literally all aspects of salt lake sedimentology geo of saline lake geoscience have been done during the past chemistry and paleolimnology decade As shown in Figure 1 the early part of the 1980 s As with most conferences and meetings dealing with la was a period of rapid increase in saline lake publications custrine environments and paleolimnology the Saskatoon Since about 1985 however the rate of production of geo conference was broad in scope Participants had a remark science publications dealing with salt lake topics has e able diversity of backgrounds and scientific specialities in mained relatively constant at 70 per year Although main cluding sedimentologists geochemists hydrologists geo taining a steady output per annum Figure 1 also sho s that graphers paleontologists ecologists and biologists from there has been a significant increase in the proportIOn of universities governments industry and private organiza publications dealing with saline lakes versus freshwater la tions Papers presented at this conference that dealt pri custrine sediments and environments such that over the past marily with biological or biochemical paleolimnology have several years about 30 percent of all lacustrine geoscience been collected and publish d as a e separately special the publications have dealt with salt lakes issue ofJournal ofPaleolimnology Evans 1993 The aIm Most of the salt lake papers from the past decade have of SEPM Special Publication Number 50 is to bring to been published as journal articles with a much smaller pro gether selected papers from this conference that deal spe portion appearing as chapters or articles in monographs cifically with the sedimentological inorganic geochemical published government or masters and and hydrological aspects ofsalt lakes and their reports unpublished stratigraphic doctorate 2 An trend not to degree theses Fig encouraging is records We have tried compile a comprehensive re the recent increase in salt lake research stu view of saline lake sedimentology but rather reflect the by graduate dents not that young have taken scope of current research An excellent review of much of implying only geoscientists an interest in salt lakes but also that the saline lake sedimentological and geochemical literature increasing suggesting the number of with salt lakes has already recently been presented by Smoot and Lowen journal publications dealing should increase at the next In total stein 1991 least over several years for the past decade slightly over 90 percent of the journal articles have been published in just nine journals with Pa HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE laeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology Chem The timing of the Saskatoon salt lake symposium and ical Geology and American Association of Petroleum Ge Bulletin over resulting publications was ideal For many years saline lakes ologists comprising the source for well ha f the have ranked among the least understood and most poorly saline lake references Fig 3 Saline lake research IS studied environments in the entire spectrum of sedimentary flourishing Further evidence of the burgeoning interest came geology Despite the fact that some of the earliest scientific in 1992 with the first issue of the new interdisciplinary In research done on lakes was centered on saline lakes and ternational Journal ofSalt Lake Research edited by W D that closed basin continental environments have long been Williams Adelaide recognized as very important sources of paleoenvironmen It should be no surprise that most of the geoscience ma tal information geolimnological investigations of saline lakes terial published on salt lakes during the past 10 years has in most of the world have lagged behind those offreshwater dealt with Cenozoic sediments Fig 4 and most has been settings Indeed salt lakes have received little more than on lakes located in United States Fig 5 Researchers have

Sedimentology and Geochemistry of Modern and Ancient Saline Lakes SEPM Special Publication No 50 Copyright @ 1994 SEPM Society for Sedimentary Geology ISBN 1 56576 014 X

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150 30 OF TOTAL LAKE REFERENCES

OF SALT LAKE REFERENCES 100 20 III@IItIIi l

Z ol u

J Z 0 50 10

o 0 o O o 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

YEAR OF PUBLICATION

and the of salt lake FIG I Bar line diagram showing Ihe number of sail lake geoscience references per year 1981 1992 bars percentage AOI GeoRef references for each year reIalive 10 Ihe lotal number of geoscience references dealing with all types of lakes line Data acquired using theses Index and ISI Science Citalion Index Included in Ihis data base are non English references government reports and unpublished graduate in addition 10 published journal articles and monograph papers chapters

100 JOURNAL rtitI1 PAPERS MONOGRAPH PAPERS 75 1I1I GOVERN T D REPORTS

Il z Z II THESES u 50 I I 0 ill 25111

o tx o r co coO 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

YEAR OF PUBLICATION

FIG 2 Cluster bar diagram showing the proportions of sail lake geoscience journal papers monograph papers chaplers governmenl reports and graduate theses per year 1981 1992 See caption of Figure I for sources of data

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INTRODUCTION vii

EiliN ELJCEAN SEDIMENT GEOL SEDIMENTOLOGY GEOLOGY

GEOCHIM COSM

MONOGR PAPERS AAPG BULL

JOURNAL PAPERS CHEM GEOL GOV T REPORTS

PALE03

90 OF JOURNAL PAPERS IN 9 JOURNALS

FIG 3 Pie bar diagram showing Ihe overall proportion of the various Iypes of salt lake geoscience references 1981 1992 and the source for 90 of the references See of journals approximaleIy joumal caption Figure I for sources of data

I HOLOCENE PRECAMBRIAN

PALEOZOIC

PLEISTOCENE

MESOZOIC

TERTIARY

FIG 4 Pie bar the overall of salt lake 1992 See diagram showing proportion geoscience references with respecI to age of the deposit 1981 caption of Figure I for sources of dala

placed considerable emphasis on the study of modem pro vide paleolimnologists with better tools to help decipher the cess sedimentology and geochemistry of saline lakes Fig stratigraphic records preserved in this important but often 6 hopefully this advance in our understanding of the neglected environment The emphasis on modem and Qua physical and geochemical processes that control sedimen ternary saline lake systems is also reflected in the contents tation and facies distribution in modem salt lakes will pro of this book

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110 1

of the total number of salt lake references with to location FIG 5 Skelch map showing Ihe reIalive proportion geoscience respect geographic than 90 of all references See of I for sources of data of the deposit Nine countries account for more caption Figure

r 60

u Z 50

30 0

Eo Z 20

u 10 p

o S S S G OOG OGOO OG OGO OG O SGS OG G G G I O O oG O O O O G

to lake references 1981 1992 matter identified according FIG 6 Bar diagram showing the major subjecI matter of salt geoscience Subject of I for sources of dala key words and title words See caption Figure

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INTRODUCTION ix

SEPM SPECIAL PUBLICATION 50 glected topic is used by Webster and Jones to help deter mine paleoenvironmental conditions in Quaternary playa Following the format of the 1991 Saskatoon Symposium sediments of the southern High Plains region Texas Co this volume is divided into four sections The first and larg shell and Rosen examine the 6 000 year history of a hy est section contains ten papers that deal with modern saline persaline meromictic marginal marine lake containing lakes Brine geochemistry and geochemical processes that abundant benthic microbial mats in western Australia In are important in controlling water composition in salt lakes the final paper of this section Salama reviews the long and are the focus of most of these papers Bryant Drake Mil complex history of lacustrine sedimentation in the Yilgarn lington and Sellwood document the dramatic composi River region of Western Australia using a combination of tional changes and short term evolution that occurred in a sedimentological and geomorphological evidence large saline playa in Tunisia after a major flooding event The third and fourth sections of this volume both contain Lent Lyons Hines Last and address the problem of or papers devoted to ancient pre Quaternary lacustrine se ganic carbon preservation in lakes of varying composition quences The Tertiary saline lake sediments of central and and different levels of sulfate reduction Similarly Komor eastern Spain are among the most spectacular and best stud provides new data on sulfate reduction organic matter deg ied ancient lacustrine deposits in the world and have been radation and the influence ofthese processes on brine geo the subject of intensive petrographic and stratigraphic ex Lake in North chemistry ofthe well studied Devils Dakota amination by a very active group of Spanish researchers In an unusually detailed investigation of solute flux using Salvany and Orti present results of a detailed petrographic a mass balance approach Donovan supplies the basis for examination of glauberite rich lacustrine rocks of the Mio quantitatively evaluating salt sources and budgets of the many cene age Ebro Basin The Miocene lake sediments of the saline lakes of the northern Great Plains of western North large Madrid Basin to the west are the subject of two other the America Also within Great Plains region Last docu papers Ordonez and Garcia del Cura discuss the petrol rates water ments unusually high sedimentation in deep hy ogy diagenesis and depositional environments of a se persaline lakes The La Mancha region of central Spain quence of glauberitic deposits while Sanz Rodriguez Ar contains many salt lakes and saline playas Ordonez Sanchez anda Calvo and Ordonez provide new criteria for Moral Garcia del Cura and Rodriguez Badiola review recognition of detrital lacustrine gypsum in the geological the major salt mineral geochemistry of these lakes and make record Buchheim uses the lithostratigraphy mineralogy use of an artificial evaporating pond to establish a predic stable isotope ratios and paleontology to help describe the tive model for mineral precipitation and brine geochemis conditions of deposition and paleosalinity of the Eocene try In one of two invited contributions Smoot and Cas Green River Formation in southwestern Wyoming Gier tens Seidell provide a particularly well illustrated synopsis lowski Kordesch and Rust provide a much needed critical of sedimentary structures produced by efflorescent salt crusts examination of past ideas on the Jurassic East Berlin For in the saline lakes ofeastern California One reviewer com mation in northeastern North America and a reinterpretation mented that this paper is one of the most important refer of this important graben fill sequence In the final paper of ences on the generation and preservation of structures in the third section Valero Garces and Gisbert Aguilar pro playa lakes In the other invited paper in this volume also vide a comprehensive examination and interpretation of the dealing with efflorescent crusts in playa lakes Arakel and late Paleozoic lacustrine carbonates in the Aragon Beam Hongjun combine field observations experimental precip Basin of northern Spain itation results and thermodynamic considerations to deci Differentiation between lacustrine sediments and marine pher and interpret the modem evaporite facies in a series deposits is often difficult particularly in hypersaline set ofgroundwater discharge lakes in central Australia Renaut tings In the first paper of the final section Williams Stroud and Tiercelin provide an overview of sedimentation in sa discusses the transition from marine to non marine sedi line alkaline Lake Bogoria one of the most intriguing and mentation in the Pennsylvanian Paradox Salt deposit Chip beautiful East African Rift basin lakes In the final paper ley and Kyser provide important new stable isotopic and of this section Drake Bryant Millington and Town fluid inclusion data to show that some types of chevron shend show how satellite imagery can help in mapping and halite can form in the subsurface and cannot always be monitoring the sedimentology and hydrology of modem playa assumed to indicate sedimentation from shallow subaerial lakes in remote regions brines In the final paper Benalioulhaj Schreiber and The second section of this volume contains five papers Philp in a novel approach show how organic geochem dealing with sedimentation and diagenesis of late Quater istry can be combined with more conventional methods to nary salt lakes Mees and Richardson use bedding char determine the marine to non marine transition in the Lorca acteristics mineralogy and magnetic susceptibility to in Basin Spain terpret periods of meromixis alternating with episodes of The contents of a proceedings volume of this type are a low water or dry conditions and ultimately holomictic con reflection not only of the researchers who contributed their ditions in the Holocene record of a crater lake in Sudan scientific findings but also of the reviewers who helped to Newton provides the first account of sediments recovered evaluate the data and interpretations presented We express from the floor of Mono Lake a well known saline alkaline our sincere gratitude to the following reviewers for their lake in California He then uses the evidence from cores to efforts R Anderson J Bada A Behrensmeyer R Bums reconstruct the lake s Holocene history The mineralogy of P De Deckker R Forester J I Drever H Geldsetzer the clay fraction of saline lake sediments an often ne L A Hardie R L Hay P Hare R Hecky M Hickman

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1984 Lake Sediments and I Hutcheon N P James B F Jones K Kelts H Kraus HAWORTH E Y AND LUND J W G eds Environmental Hislory Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press T K Kyser L S Land T K Lowenstein G Mac 411 p Donald E Mazzullo K McNamara D Naldrett R B HAKANSON L AND 1ANNSON M 1983 Principles of Lake SedimenloI Owen J Pamell B Pratt J E Roedder L Sack 316 Risberg ogy New York Springer Verlag p C Schenk L Snowdon S Stein M Talbot J T Teller HAMMER UT 1986 Saline Lake Ecosystems of the World Dordrecht 616 G van der Kamp J Warren M A J Williams S Wil Dr W 1unk Publishers p SMOOT 1 P loWENSTEIN TK 1991 environments liams Stroud W D Williams B H Wilkinson W Wood AND Depositional Melvin 1 L ed Petroleum of non marine in Evaporites J A T Young and R Yuretich evaporites and Mineral Resources Amsterdam Elsevier p 189 347 are to SEPM Publication We especially grateful Special STUMM W ed 1985 Chemical Processes in Lakes New York John Editors Peter Scholle Dana Ulmer Scholle and Barbara Wiley Sons 265 p Lidz for their exceptional tolerance and guidance in pro WETZEL RG 1983 Limnology Toronto W B Saunders Company ducing this volume 743 p WILLIAMS W D 1986 Limnology the study of inland waters a com De REFERENCES ment on perceptions of slUdies of salt lakes past and present in in Mel EVANS M ed 1993 Special Issue Salt Lake Paleolimnology Journal Deckker P and Williams W D eds Limnology Australia 486 of Paleolimnology v 8 129 p bourne CSIRO Auslralia p 471

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