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Limestone–marl alternations as environmental archives and the role of early diagenesis: a critical review

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“This difference [between shale and limestone] does not find definite expression in the chemical composition but appeals to the eye.” Gilbert (1895)

Abstract

Limestone–marl alternations and other micritic calcareous rhythmites have long appealed to sedimentologists, as they appeared to directly reflect high-frequency environmental change. In particular, when orbital forcing gained popularity amongst sedimentologists and paleoclimatologists in 1980s, such rhythmites seemed to offer an ideal tool for high-resolution chronostratigraphy and environmental reconstruction. However, in spite of the fact that orbital forcing has become a routine interpretation of calcareous rhythmites, and that the processes of formation of calcareous rhythmites are considered well understood, research in the past 10 years again has questioned their primary origin and their direct interpretability. Detailed petrographic, paleontological, and geochemical data from numerous successions through geological time provided the basis for testing whether or not the regular alternation of limestone beds and marl or shale interlayers represents bimodally fluctuating environmental conditions in a direct way. In particular, these data, supplemented by box model simulations, imply that post-depositional alteration (diagenesis) has the potential to not only seriously distort primary environmental signals, but also to mimic primary signals. This questions the use of micritic calcareous rhythmites for high-resolution chronostratigraphy and for environmental interpretations where independent data of diagenetically inert parameters are not available. Diagenetic changes appear to have a yet widely underestimated influence on the appearance of limestone–marl alternations and other calcareous rhythmites. The aim of the present review is to summarize new approaches and give an overview of our research results in this field of the past decade. This review also aims at pointing to still enigmatic aspects that need to be addressed before the interpretation of micritic calcareous rhythmites can be considered a reliable tool for high-resolution chronostratigraphy and paleoenvironmental interpretation.

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Acknowledgments

The author is indebted to the Geologische Vereinigung for the Hans-Cloos-Award 2003. This contribution is the author’s response to receiving this award. The author also wants to thank the numerous colleagues who over the years have been involved in the limestone–marl research and without whom this research would not have taken place. This includes in particular Axel Munnecke, Florian Böhm, Stefan Bornholdt, Jens Herrle, Jörg Pross, John Reijmer, and Christian Samtleben, among many others. Also, the author is indebted to the many colleagues who with discussions and advice accompanied this research over the years, namely Leslie Melim, André Freiwald, Gerhard Einsele, and Werner Ricken among others. Thanks are due to Sonja Löffler for her help during preparation of this manuscript. Comments by IJES referees Werner Ricken and André Strasser greatly helped to improve this manuscript. The manuscript benefited from critical comments to an earlier version and discussions during preparation of this manuscript with Julita Biernacka, Florian Böhm, Leslie Melim, Axel Munnecke, and James Wheeley. The research presented here has been supported by the German Science Foundation DFG.

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  1. Hildegard Westphal

    Present address: Department of Geosciences, Universität Bremen, Leobener Straße, MARUM building, 28359, Bremen, Germany

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    Westphal, H. Limestone–marl alternations as environmental archives and the role of early diagenesis: a critical review. Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 95, 947–961 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-006-0084-8

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