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PHREATIC VERSUS VADOSE METEORIC DIAGENESIS OF LIMESTONES: EVIDENCE FROM A FOSSIL WATER TABLE
Author(s) -
LAND LYNTON S.
Publication year - 1970
Publication title -
sedimentology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.494
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1365-3091
pISSN - 0037-0746
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-3091.1970.tb00191.x
Subject(s) - diagenesis , phreatic , geology , vadose zone , cementation (geology) , meteoric water , geochemistry , water table , geomorphology , paleontology , aquifer , groundwater , cement , geotechnical engineering , archaeology , history , hydrothermal circulation
SUMMARY The Middle Pleistocene Belmont Formation of Bermuda consists in part of beach‐dune biocalcarenites which underwent intense contemporaneous cementation and diagenesis. The beach deposits were contemporaneously cemented by fibrous isophacous cement to form beachrock, whereas previously deposited eolianites further inland underwent intense meteoric phreatic diagenesis, resulting in coarse‐grained cementation and stabilization of most of the metastable components of the rock. Above the Belmont water table, vadose diagenesis was relatively ineffective in cementing and altering the biocalcarenites. Phreatic meteoric diagenesis is interpreted to be a very rapid process, relative to vadose meteoric diagenesis, and to result in a much coarser‐grained sparite.