TITLE:
Phanerozoic Quartz Arenite Formation and Sequence-Analytical Patterns: Indirectly Relating to Major Impacting and Super Plume Volcanism, Jordan, Arabian Plate
AUTHORS:
Werner Schneider, Elias Salameh
KEYWORDS:
Interrelationship, Chronostratigraphic and Lithostratigraphic b., Sequence-Analysis (SB, MFS), Major Impacting and Super Plume Volcanism (Gases!), Mass Extinction, Plate Tectonics, Diagenesis, Quartz Arenite Early Paleozoic and Early Cretaceous, Jordanian Platform, Arabian Plate (Correlations)
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Geology,
Vol.10 No.1,
January
7,
2020
ABSTRACT: This paper deals with indirect effects of major impacting throughout the Early Paleozoic resp. with those of super plume activity during the Early Cretaceous, both applied to the siliciclastic series of Jordan deposited on the Arabian Platform, Arabian Plate. Its focus is mainly directed on gases released by both processes (CO2, SO2, NOx, HCl, HF) and the relating acids, challenged by experiments and microscopic analysis of grain mounts and thin sections that reveal chemical instability of quartz and ultrastable heavy minerals (i.e. tourmaline) under high acidity (pH °C - 90°C). According to Lopatin’s Time/Temperatur-Index the Lower Cambrian reached the onset of hydrocarbon generation (liquid window) during the Lower Early Cretaceous. Unstable heavy minerals (apatite, garnet, hornblende, epidote, zoisite/clinozoisite) are generally absent in quartz arenites while in arkosic sandstones of marine environment carbonate cement and primary clay minerals (illite) provide conservation. As known since the eighties, the K/T-event’s indirect effects had global influence on Earth’s surface sediments and atmospheric chemistry by wildfires, hot whirl storms, acidic “sturz rain”, dust, soot, darkness, loss of photosynthesis, toxic metals, gases and relating acids. All of them are here concerned and applied to major impacting throughout the Early Paleozoic using the impact data of Price (2001); while superplume volcanism during Cretaceous led to the opening of the South Atlantic accompanied by the cyclic outflow of the Para?a/Etendeka Flood Basalts and relating gases in a gigantic scale (137 - 127 Ma). Assuming that the gases cause similar global effects on Earth’s surface sediments, an according result may be expected in form of quartz arenites and their sequence-analytical patterns (cyclic SBs, MFSs).*