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Reworked marine sandstone concretions: a record of high-frequency shallow burial to exhumation cycles

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Abstract

Concretions, with abundant calcite-dolomite cement-replacement textures originally hosted in shallow-marine sandstones, were reworked into Lower Cretaceous fluvio-deltaic conglomerates and shoreface sandstones (External Zones, Betic Cordillera). A cycle of host sand deposition, early diagenetic concretion formation and concretion reworking is documented: (1) Well-sorted shoreface sandstone deposited. (2) Spherical to ovoid, non-ferroan calcite-cemented concretions formed below flooding surfaces at shallow-burial depths during early eodiagenesis. Non-ferroan calcite cements were precipitated from the bicarbonate derived from seawater and from dissolution of marine bioclasts, as shown by isotope analyses. (3) Concretions were reworked and exposed on the seafloor in a high-energy setting as indicated by the presence of numerous bivalve borings (Entobia ichnofacies), laminated micritic microbial crusts around the concretions, and epilithobionts (oysters, barnacles and corals) on the concretion surface. Concretions also appear as erosional remnants on the floor of channels which were incised into the shoreline sandstone when sea-level fell. (4) The fluvio–deltaic channels were filled with sediment during flooding in the late lowstand of sea-level. (5) The concretions are partly dolomitized, and the presence of siderite, pyrite and barite in the outer part of the concretions precipitated before the dolomite, suggests that the latter formed during shallow burial.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the projects CGL2009-10329, CGL2009-07830/BTE, CGL2009-05768-E/BTE, CGL2007-65832/BTE and CGL2010-15372 financed by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (MEC), the European Foundation of Regional Development (FEDER), and Research Group RNM-200 and 316of the Junta de Andalucía. R. Marfil was supported by Project UCM-CAM CCG07-UCM-AMB 2299. Grupo 910404 “Petrología Aplicada al análisis de cuencas y a la conservación del Patrimonio Geológico”. A. Santos received financial support from the Ministry of Science and Technology of Spain in the form of a Juan de la Cierva contract (Refª JCI-2008-2431). D. Daniel Garcia from the Centre SPIN, Departement GENERIC, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines des St. Etienne, France is gratefully acknowledged for studying the samples under cathodoluminescence microscopy. Stable isotopes analysis was carried out in Instituto Andaluz Ciencias de la Tierra (CSIC). We are indebted to Eugenio Baldonedo Rodriguez and Alfredo Larios for their valuable help with the SEM and EMPA analyses respectively. Christine Laurin is thanked for the English version of the text.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dpt. de Geología, Facultad de Ciencias Experimentales, Universidad de Jaén, Campus Universitario, 23071, Jaén, Spain

    F. García-García & G. A. De Gea

  2. Dpt. de Petrología y Geoquímica, Facultad de Ciencias Geológicas, Universidad Complutense, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    R. Marfil & A. Kobstädt

  3. Laboratorio de Isótopos estables, Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra (CSIC-UGR), 18100, Armilla, Granada, Spain

    A. Delgado

  4. Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Jena, Germany

    A. Kobstädt

  5. Dpt. de Geodinámica y Paleontología, Facultad de Ciencias Experimentales, Universidad de Huelva, 21071, Huelva, Spain

    A. Santos & E. Mayoral

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  1. F. García-García
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  2. R. Marfil
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  3. G. A. De Gea
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  4. A. Delgado
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  5. A. Kobstädt
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  6. A. Santos
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  7. E. Mayoral
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Correspondence to F. García-García.

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García-García, F., Marfil, R., De Gea, G.A. et al. Reworked marine sandstone concretions: a record of high-frequency shallow burial to exhumation cycles. Facies 59, 843–861 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10347-012-0335-z

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