Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2018 A Geochemical Analysis of Rare Earth Elements Associated with Significant Sedimentary Phosphate Deposits of West- Central Florida Kyle Matthew Turner Follow this and additional works at the DigiNole: FSU's Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES A GEOCHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF RARE EARTH ELEMENTS ASSOCIATED WITH SIGNIFICANT SEDIMENTARY PHOSPHATE DEPOSITS OF WEST-CENTRAL FLORIDA By KYLE MATTHEW TURNER A Thesis submitted to the Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science 2018 Kyle M. Turner defended this thesis on April, 20, 2018. The members of the supervisory committee were: Jeremy D. Owens Professor Directing Thesis William C. Parker Committee Member Vincent J. Salters Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii To my family Mom, Dad, Kayla and Bailey To my friends and colleagues Thank you for the love and support iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my thanks to my family and friends for supporting me along this journey at Florida State University. Mom, Dad, and Kayla, thank you for supporting me constantly, even when you had other things to worry about. To the faculty and staff at FSU, specifically Dr. Jeremy Owens, Dr. Vincent Salters, Dr. William Parker, and Dr. Seth Young, thank you all for supporting this project and pushing me out of my comfort zone to become a better scientist. Jeremy, you have been a blessing in my academic career, and for you I will forever be grateful. I appreciate your willingness to drop everything and discuss topics whenever necessary. To my classmates, Matthew Schreck, Eric Parrish, Randal Funderburk, Mary Beth Lupo, Ben Davis, Gary Fowler and the Young/Owens lab group, thank you for the support, scientific input and for giving me a few laughs along the way. To the geochemistry department of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, specifically Afi Sachi-Kocher and Gary White, thank you for assisting in the analysis of samples, and for all you do for the lab. All geochemical analysis was completed at The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Fl. which is supported by National Science Foundation Cooperative Agreement No. DMR-1157490/DMR-1644779, and the state of Florida. To Mr. and Mrs. Bill Maxwell, thank you for financial support on this project, without it none of this would have happened. To Dr. Tom Herbert and Dr. Linda Lampl, thank you for supporting aspiring geologists, and for assisting in the logistics of this project. I would also like to thank Cascade Environmental for their generosity of using their drill rigs for sample recovery, without it, this project wouldn’t exist. Finally, Bailey Follman, thank you for the love and support over the last 5 years. Being 300 miles apart hasn’t always been easy, but our relationship has grown even stronger thanks to it. I love you. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables ............................................................................................................................................................. vii List of Figures ......................................................................................................................................................... viii Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................................ ix 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................. 1 Purpose .................................................................................................................................................................... 1 Background ............................................................................................................................................................ 2 Overview ............................................................................................................................................................ 2 Previous Work ................................................................................................................................................. 3 Phosphorite Formation ................................................................................................................................ 4 Florida’s Geologic History ................................................................................................................................ 6 Sample Location and Setting ...................................................................................................................... 7 The Hawthorn Group .................................................................................................................................... 7 The Peace River Formation ........................................................................................................................ 8 The Bone Valley Member ............................................................................................................................ 8 2. METHODS ............................................................................................................................................................. 10 Field Sampling .................................................................................................................................................... 10 Core Description and Sampling .................................................................................................................. 10 Laboratory Procedures .................................................................................................................................. 11 Sample Digestion and Elemental Analysis ........................................................................................ 11 Strontium Isotopes ...................................................................................................................................... 11 Thallium Isotopes ........................................................................................................................................ 12 3. RESULTS ............................................................................................................................................................... 14 Core Description ............................................................................................................................................... 14 Strontium and Thallium Isotope Analysis ............................................................................................. 14 Phosphate and Trace Elements .................................................................................................................. 17 Rare Earth Elements (REEs) ........................................................................................................................ 18 4. DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................................................................ 20 Geologic Age of the Peace River Formation .......................................................................................... 20 v REE Trends .......................................................................................................................................................... 21 Environmental Conditions and Depositional Mechanisms ............................................................ 22 Possible Climatic Control on Phosphorite Burial ............................................................................... 26 Potential Solution ............................................................................................................................................. 29 5. CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................................................... 30 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................................................... 32 APPENDIX ................................................................................................................................................................. 39 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .................................................................................................................................... 55 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Sr isotope data. This data is used to plot samples on the Sr seawater curve in Figure 4. ..................................................................................................................................................................... 17 Table 2: Tl isotope data ....................................................................................................................................... 17 Table 3: Geochemical data ................................................................................................................................. 39 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Distribution of major United