Pyritized ooids, stringed ooids and reticulate tubular structures from within the black shale at Amjhor, Bihar, India

Abstract

Carbonate ooids, notionally incompatible with an euxinic environment, and some curious reticulate tubular structures with fibrous carbonate walls are described from intraclasts occurring in Proterozoic black shales containing the pyrite deposit at Amjhor. While some of the tubes are visibly due to coalescence of ooids, others are interpreted as worm burrows on the basis of their strata-transgressive orientation, branching nature and larger diameter than those of the ooids. All stages of pyritization of ooids and tube-cores, displaying truncation of the growth-fabric of calcite grains by growing pyrite crystals, point to a late- or post-diagenetic age of pyritization. The clasts containing ooids and tubes are believed to have been transported from a shallow-bank and/or a nearshore environment into a lagoonal, euxinic basin. An environmental model, consistent with the observed data, is proposed to account for the ooid—black shale association.