Abstract
The Evaporite Member of the Kirmir Formation was deposited in shallow lacustrine environments during the upper Miocene. The most soluble minerals of this member can be currently observed in the Çayirhan mine. The Evaporite Member, which is composed of secondary gypsum at outcrop, can be subdivided into a bedded lower unit and a massive upper unit. In the bedded lower unit, most of the gypsum throughout the basin can be identified as having been transformed from glauberite. In the glauberite layers of the Çayirhan mine, some glauberite textures (‘clear glauberite’) suggest a primary, subaqueous, free precipitation on a depositional floor. More common, however, are the glauberite textures indicating an interstitial growth within a clayey-magnesitic matrix. In the thenardite layers accompanying the glauberite in the Çayirhan mine, some disruption structures can be assigned to synsedimentary dissolution. These structures together with the textures of the thenardite suggest that the original sodium sulphate was mirabilite, thenardite being a secondary phase, which formed during early to moderate burial diagenesis. The massive upper unit, in which evidence of sodium-bearing minerals is absent, is characterized by laminated to banded gypsum and nodular gypsum in the marginal areas of the evaporitic basin, whereas thick, clast-supported gypsum breccias prevail in the northern, deeper part of the basin. The brecciation of these calcium sulphate layers occurred as a result of synsedimentary, gravitative slumping under tectonic control. Although the sulphur isotopic values (δ 34 S) of the sulphates of the Kirmir Formation suggest a marine-derived brine supply, the oxygen isotopic values (δ 18 O) and the strontium ratios ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) do not support such a supply. The origin of the mother brines, the glauberite genesis, the depositional model of the sodium sulphates, and the salinity evolution are discussed.
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