Phosphate deposits of Neogene age in Greece. Mineralogy, geochemistry and genetic implications

Abstract

In Greece, several occurrences of phosphates have been located in Mesozoic and Cenozoic sedimentary rocks. The aim of the present paper is to describe the mineralogy, geochemistry and the origin of the phosphates deposited in marine and lacustrine basins of Neogene age in Greece. Phosphates of marine origin formed in an outer shelf-upper slope environment (Palliki Peninsula, Kefalonia Island) as well as in a hemipelagic environment (Heraklion, Crete Island). In both the deposits, the phosphate minerals belong to the apatite group. In Kefalonia Island, phosphatic material accumulations occur in the field as scattered or accumulated vertebrate bones, fish teeth and other biogenic components, hosted in a sandy limestone of Upper Tortonian age. On a microscopic scale, in the groundmass of the limestone, phosphate minerals are present as fillings and secondarily as replacements of foraminiferal and other calcareous microfossil tests. In Crete Island, burrowed cobbles and phosphatic concretions up to 10 cm in diameter have been detected east of Heraklion town. The phosphatic material is hosted in a sandy marlstone that is interbedded with diatomaceous rocks of Middle Pliocene age. Phosphates of lacustrine origin have been formed in the NW–SE-oriented Upper Miocene basins of Florina–Ptolemais and Elassona–Sarantaporo, located, respectively, in western Macedonia and Thessaly, Greece. The phosphate minerals are mainly represented by Ca/Fe phosphates such as anapaite and mitridatite and secondarily by Ca phosphates of the apatite group that are hosted in a thick succession of clayey diatomite rock. They usually form lenticular layers, asymmetric lenses, nodular and botryoidal aggregates, and faecal pellet replacements. The major and trace element content of a representative set of rocks was studied. Their geochemistry was found to be controlled by the presence of detrital minerals, the host rock mineralogies, and the types of phosphate minerals present. The relatively high amounts of uranium, arsenic and barium detected in some of the phosphate rocks studied are mainly related with organic matter and are comparable to those detected in other phosphate deposits worldwide. In the deposits studied, phosphogenesis was mainly promoted by the decay of organic substances derived from diatoms, fishes and other vertebrates, leaves and trunks, and faecal pellets in a highly reducing environment on or just below the sea or lake bottom, and secondarily by the feeding of the basin with phosphate-bearing nutrients that originated in the land.