Black Shales are fine grained, generally organic carbon-rich sedimentary rocks that primarily consist of a mixture of clay minerals, quartz silt, organic particles (mostly planktonic algae and plant debris), and kerogen. They may also contain variable amounts of disseminated finely crystalline calcite and dolomite, as well as phosphate (commonly as concretions). Most black shales are found in marine sediments (Potter et al., 1980), but they can also form prominent deposits in lacustrine successions (Bohacs et al., 2000). Their black color is due to two constituents: (1) the contained organic matter, and (2) finely disseminated pyrite. The reducing conditions indicated by the latter have long led geologists to believe that ancient black shales required anoxic bottom waters for their formation, and were a typical deposit of the distal, deepest portions of sedimentary basins (via comparisons with the abyssal Black Sea where carbonaceous muds currently accumulate).
The Black Sea is a...
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Schieber, J. (1978). Black shales. In: Middleton, G.V., Church, M.J., Coniglio, M., Hardie, L.A., Longstaffe, F.J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sediments and Sedimentary Rocks. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-3609-5_30
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