Meteoric diagenesis, marine diagenesis, and microporosity in Pleistocene and Oligocene limestones, Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands

Abstract

Microporosity occurs in Pleistocene and Oligocene limestones cored on Enewetak Atoll. In cores of Pleistocene limestone (10–80 m deep), mi microporosity is present in aragonitic skeletal grains that underwent partial intrafabric dissolution (chalkification) leaving a porous meshwork of aragonite needles. Microporous aragonite is most abundant in 5–10 m thick intervals below zones of intense diagenesis associated with paleo-freshwater lenses. Extensive microporosity was apparently generated by slow intrafabric dissolution of aragonite in mixing zones below freshwater lenses. Microporous aragonite is an intermediate step in the calcitization or dissolution of aragonite. Most calcitized aragonite (neomorphic calcite) formed by precipitation of sparry calcite in (over) microporous aragonite. Aragonitic fossils were not converted to microporous, microcrystalline calcite. Therefore, data from the Pleistocene of Enewetak suggest that widespread, microporous, microcrystalline calcite does not form directly from pure aragonite, at least not in open meteoric systems or mixing zones. Microporous micrite occurs in Oligocene wackestones 930 m deep deposited in a slope environment. The microporous micrite is characterized by equant and prismatic crystals of low-magnesium calcite (LMC). Equant crystals are anhedral to euhedral and 2–10 μm in diameter. Prismatic calcite crystals are subhedral, 5–10 μm wide, and 20–50 μm long. Stable isotopic and trace element geochemistry suggest that microporous micrite formed by diagenetic alteration of high-magnesium calcite (HMC) micrite in deep seawater undersaturated with respect to HMC but supersaturated with respect to LMC (probably near the sediment-water interface). Mineralogy and crystal morphology of the microporous aragonite is very different from microporous shelf limestones in the Thamama Group (Cretaceous, Persian Gulf; see Moshier, 1989). Equant microcrystals of calcite in the Oligocene micrites are similar to those in microporous parts of the Thamama Group. Widespread microporosity in LMC limestones could form by alteration of HMC micrite in mixing zones or in seawater undersaturated with respect to HMC but supersaturated with respect to LMC.