Storage diagenesis versus sulphide authigenesis: possible implications in environmental magnetism

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Experiments involving the gradual drying out of controlled mixtures of soil and organic lake sediment during storage at room temperature show that this leads to a loss of magnetic susceptibility and isothermal remanence greatly in excess of the initial values for the sediment components of the mixtures. We conclude that during storage in the moist state, soil-derived, fine-grained, ferrimagnetic iron oxides (magnetite and/or maghemite) are transformed to paramagnetic and/or imperfect antiferrimagnetic minerals. The imperfect anti-ferromagnetic component of the initial mixtures, which probably includes goethite, appears to survive and may even increase during storage. The experimental results compare well with the previously documented effects of storing wet sediment from the site, Peckforton Mere, Cheshire, U.K., over a comparable time interval. We conclude that transformation of fine grained ferrimagnets during ‘storage diagenesis’ may be responsible for many of the examples of loss of magnetic susceptibility and remanence attributed by other authors solely to the oxidation of an iron sulphide such as greigite. Only where greigite is positively identified is it valid to infer a contribution from it to the magnetic properties of lake sediments: loss of susceptibility or remanence during storage is not alone a sufficient basis for such an inference. Early drying of samples will normally avoid the effects of storage diagenesis; and recent sediment samples so treated will, where greigite formation, bacterial magnetite and magnetite dissolution are insignificant, provide a valid basis for source identification on the basis of magnetic properties.