Geochemistry of Metastable Carbonate Minerals from the Brush Creek Marine Interval (Missourian), Indiana County, Pennsylvania

Abstract

Many marine fossils from the Missourian Brush Creek interval of western Pennsylvania display partial preservation of metastable aragonite and high-magnesium calcite shell material. Bivalve mollusks have been shown by x-ray diffraction to contain as much as 96% aragonite, with lesser amounts of both high-magnesium and low-magnesium calcite. Stable carbon and oxygen isotopic ratios from these bivalves suggest they precipitated in equilibrium with Pennsylvanian ocean water. The bellerophontid Pharkidonotus, which exhibits partial recrystallization textures under scanning electron microscopy, consists of 45% aragonite and 55% low-magnesium calcite, and has slightly more depleted isotopic values than bivalves. Crinoids also appear to have been partially recrystallized, resulting in a mixture of primary high-magnesium calcite and secondary low-magnesium calcite and microdolomite, with much of the original shell structure still preserved. The degree of preservation of metastable carbonate minerals varies both stratigraphically and spatially within the Brush Creek interval. Maximum preservation occurs in organic-rich shales deposited in low-lying areas of the Brush Creek sea floor. The preservation of aragonite and high-magnesium calcite in such units may have resulted from a lack of circulating porewater during early diagenesis.