Controls on the precipitation of barite (BaSO 4) crystals in calcite travertine at Twitya Spring, a warm sulphur spring in Canada's Northwest Territories

Abstract

Twitya Spring discharges warm (24 °C), anoxic, sulphide-, calcium- (65 ppm) and barium- (≥ 0.78 ppm) rich spring water to a steep flow path that is inhabited by streamer and mat-forming microbes ( Thiothrix, Beggiatoa, Oscillatoria, Spirulina, diatoms, rod shaped bacteria). Oxidation and CO 2 degassing drive precipitation of elemental sulphur, barite, opaline silica, and calcite. A mound of travertine at the base of the flow path, dominantly composed of bedded barium-enriched crystallographic and noncrystallographic dendritic calcite crystals and calcite cements, hosts three types of barite crystals: type 1 (T1) intergrown tabular crystals that formed in solution, type 2 (T2) tabular and rhombic crystals that nucleated on calcite, and type 3 (T3) subhedral and anhedral microcrystals that nucleated on microbial cell surfaces and in microbial extracellular polymeric substances. The formation and distribution of T1, T2, and T3 barite in the Twitya Spring flow path are controlled by physiochemical gradients, calcite precipitation rates, and adsorption of barium to microbial biomass, all of which vary seasonally and episodically at Twitya Spring. The complex physiochemical and biological controls on barite formation at Twitya Spring both suggest that the classification of biogenic or inorganic sedimentary barite on the basis of crystal size and morphology may be oversimplified. There is also the potential that primary and authigenic barite crystals hosted in carbonates may yield information about the microbial ecology and ambient physiochemistry of their depositional environments.