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Determining the role of chemical and biological factors in controlling precipitation of tufa and travertine deposits in Shurab area, Northern Iran

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Abstract

Shurab travertine spring is located at the beginning of the Gadook defile on the border of Tehran and Mazandaran provinces about 140 km northeastward of Tehran. The carbonate deposits are divided into two main categories: the first group of deposits are forming at the present time (active) and are mostly of different colors such as red, yellow and orange, the second group includes old (fossilized) deposits mainly adjacent to the railway line which are mostly cream colored. The age of these deposits is less than 100 years since they cover part of the railway that was build less than a century ago. This spring comes to the surface through the fractures of the Barut Formation in the railway tunnel. The morphologies of sedimentary deposits are in cascade and layered forms. In this study, 25 samples of travertines and tufas were used to determine the texture and chemical composition of the samples. Based on morphology and depositional environment in their stack, the types of travertines and tufas include: (1) waterfall travertine, (2) travertine with layered morphology, (3) calcareous tufa or framestone phytoherm and lacustrine crusts with oncoids. Also, according to the characteristic morphologies on the field and hand specimen scales in the travertine deposits and based on the petrographic results five types of lithofacies were identified which include: (1) raft boundstone lithofacies; (2) algae lithofacies; (3) crystalline crusts lithofacies; (4) boundstone shrubs lithofacies and (5) oncoid lithofacies. According to the Piper diagram and hydrochemical data, the water in Shurab spring is near neutral to slightly alkaline and of sodium chloride type. These characteristics of the spring water provide the best potential for the water to dissolve carbonates through which the water passes (e.g., Barut Formation dolomites). This study shows that the role of biological activity in the formation of these carbonate deposits is of great importance.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank college of geology of University of Tehran for the logistic aids. We present our deep gratitude to Neda Bashiri and Mahnaz Hosseinzadeh for their constructive comments and their kind help in fieldwork.

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  1. School of Geology, College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

    Mohsen Ranjbaran & Seyed Mohammad Zamanzadeh

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  1. Mohsen Ranjbaran
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Correspondence to Mohsen Ranjbaran.

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Ranjbaran, M., Zamanzadeh, S.M. Determining the role of chemical and biological factors in controlling precipitation of tufa and travertine deposits in Shurab area, Northern Iran. Carbonates Evaporites 36, 73 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13146-021-00691-z

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