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Morphology, distribution, and preservation potential of microbial mats in the hydromagnesite-magnesite playas of the Cariboo Plateau, British Columbia, Canada

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Abstract

Benthic microbial mats are common in the alkaline hydromagnesite-magnesite playa lakes of Interior British Columbia. Four main zones are recognized based on mat morphology that can be related to the type and duration of wetting. From the basin margin toward the playa centre they are: (i) vegetated hummocky ground; (ii) polygonal hummocky ground; (iii) low-domal and stratiform mats, and (iv) laterally continuous and pustular mats. Mats in peripheral mudflats are commonly mineralized by hydromagnesite, mostly precipitated by capillary evaporation of shallow groundwaters. Mats forming in the ephemeral lake tend to have lower carbonate content.

Although widespread, the mats are poorly preserved in the Holocene sedimentary record. Underlying sediments are commonly weakly bedded, disturbed or massive. Desiccation, dehydration, wetting-drying cycles, and grazing by invertebrates cause fragmentation of mats at the surface, facilitating erosion. Cryogranulation, interstitial mineral precipitation, vesiculation, bioturbation, compaction, and volume changes associated with diagenesis, disrupt and destroy lamination in the upper few centimetres. Most surviving organic matter is lost by early microbial degradation.

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  1. Department of Geological Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 0W0, Canada

    Robin W. Renaut

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Renaut, R.W. Morphology, distribution, and preservation potential of microbial mats in the hydromagnesite-magnesite playas of the Cariboo Plateau, British Columbia, Canada. Hydrobiologia 267, 75–98 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00018792

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