Paleomagnetic and oxygen isotopic evidence for long term diagenesis in radiolarian chert, Pindos Mountains, Greece

Abstract

Paleomagnetics was used in an attempt to improve chronostratigraphy in the Middle and Upper Jurassic radiolarian chert and siliceous mudstone of the Pindos Zone, Greece. Remanent magnetism studies showed strong magnetic intensity but scattered orientation. Orientation of some pressure solution features in the radiolarities indicates their formation under horizontal pressure, a condition which in Pindos geologic history would only have occurred during early Cretaceous or Cenozoic tectonics, indicating very late diagenesis in these parts of the section. From time of deposition to later time at which diagenesis can be documented, the Earth's magnetic field would have reversed many times. Remagnetization during solution-precipitation steps of silica diagenesis could complicate the rock magnetics. Oxygen isotopic and major element analyses of radiolarite lithologies show a systematic variation of rate of silica diagenesis in different host lithologies, thus solution-precipitation would occur at widely differing times throughout the section lithologies. If the dissolution of the silica cement were physically to free magnetic material from an earlier orientation, the result could be a partial shift toward alignment with the ambient magnetic field. Alternatively, complete reorientation of particles could have occurred at varying times in different parts of the section as a function of host lithology. During the northward movement and clockwise rotation of the Apulian subplate (including Pindos) these different lithologies could completely reorient during different stages of silica diagenesis, locking the orientation of iron magnetic moments into alignment with the ambient magnetic field at time of precipitation to result in a strong intensity but scattered orientation of Pindos rock magnetics.