Diagenesis of shallowly buried cratonic sandstones, southwest Sinai, Egypt

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In spite of their age, quartzose and feldspathic Lower Carboniferous sandstones deposited on the Arabian shield in western Sinai remain friable and porous (average of 19%, maximum of 25%) except for strongly cemented ferricretes and silcretes. These fluvial and shallow-marine sandstones were not buried more than 1.5 km until Late Cretaceous and younger time, when the deepest rocks reached 2.5 km. Owing to shallow burial depths and episodic exposure, meteoric water dominated the pore system for most of geologic time: iron oxides had multiple diagenetic stages and yield Carboniferous and Late Cretaceous paleomagnetic signatures, and oxygen isotopic data for authigenic quartz, sparry calcite, and kaolinite yield meteoric signatures. The most significant diagenetic changes were: (1) cementation by iron oxide that locally reaches 40% in groundwater ferricretes; (2) reduction in porosity to 19% from an assumed original porosity 45% (19% porosity was lost by compaction and 7% by cementation); (3) generation of diagenetic quartzarenites by the loss of 7% detrital feldspar by kaolinization and dissolution; and (4) development of three thin mature silcretes apparently by thermal groundwaters. Some outcrop samples have halite and gypsum cements of young but uncertain origin: recycled from topographically higher younger rocks or from aerosols? Mature silcretes are strongly cemented by microcrystalline quartz, multiply zoned syntaxial quartz, and, originally, minor opal. Quartz overgrowths in most sandstones average only 2.2%, but display a variety of textures and in places overprint isopachous opal (now dissolved) grain coats. These features have more in common with incipient silcrete cement than normal burial quartz cement. Most silica was imported in groundwater.