Organic matter deposition and preservation in ancient deep‐sea levée sediments: Implications for Neoproterozoic trends in carbon burial

Abstract

AbstractDeep‐marine levées are areally extensive features that experience high rates of sedimentation, making them ideal sites for significant carbon burial and preservation. Although modern deep‐marine levées have been shown to sequester a large proportion of the world's total buried organic carbon, few studies have attempted to assess carbon deposition and preservation in ancient deep‐marine levée deposits. Observations of well‐exposed levée deposits of the Neoproterozoic Windermere Supergroup in British Columbia, Canada, have shown that depositional processes in levées can result in the concentration and enrichment of sedimentary marine organic matter. In contrast to many previous studies where organic‐rich strata occur as black shales formed in anoxic conditions, organic matter in this study occurs mostly in banded, mud‐rich sandstones deposited under oxic conditions. Scanning electron microscopy shows that this organic carbon occurs primarily as nano‐scale coatings on clay particles, but also as uncommon sand‐sized organomineralic aggregates and discrete sand‐sized amorphous grains. As flows overspilled the channel margins, the rapid collapse of the turbulent suspension resulted in elevated rates of sediment fallout that promoted aggregation of organic matter and clay particles, increasing cohesive forces in the flow, and ultimately en masse deposition. Rapid burial plus association with clay mineral surfaces prevented organic matter degradation, thereby effectively sequestering significant amounts of carbon in the sediment and therefore a net sink for atmospheric CO2. However, the mechanisms and efficiency by which organic matter is buried and preserved on geological timescales is influenced by many factors, including glacial, sea‐level and tectonic cycles. This work elucidates the fundamental physical and chemical processes that control organic matter accumulation and preservation in deep‐marine levées, and how these processes have evolved throughout geological time.