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Information - SSP11 Authigenic minerals: sedimentology, geochemistry, origins, distribution and applications (co-sponsored by IAS)
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Event Information |
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Aim: To bring together palaeontologists, sedimentologists, stratigraphers, geochemists and palaeoceanographers to review recent advances in our understanding of the origins of authigenic minerals, and to investigate how this knowledge may be applied to better understand local to global palaeoenvironmental change, and constrain major perturbations in the Earth Surface System.
Background: Authigenic minerals precipitated in situ at, or close to, the sediment/water interface are widespread in the geological record, yet in many cases remarkably little is known about their origin, and exact modern analogues are poorly known or have yet to be identified. Authigenic minerals incorporate a remarkable range of mineral associations, including:
Phosphates: phosphate-rich sediments and phosphorites.
Clay minerals, zeolites and associated minerals: green clays: verdine, glauconite; palagonite, smectite, phillipsite, barite.
Authigenic carbonates: associations with methane and cold seeps; microbial dolomites in lagoonal and oceanic environments.
Iron deposits: ferromanganese deposits, iron crusts, iron sulphides (pyrite, marcasite, iron monosulphides), ironstones.
Themes: Each authigenic mineral suite has its own unique character, but overarching themes include the microbiology of authigenic processes, and linked spatial and temporal variation in authigenic mineral suites. Occurrences of authigenic minerals have applications to sequence stratigraphy and modelling sea-level change, and palaeoenvironmental analysis (interpretations of sedimentation rate, carbon burial flux, bottom-water oxygenation, current energy, bioturbation rate, porewater redox), and they provide evidence of global environmental changes in marine palaeoproductivity, biogeochemical cycles, and ocean-atmosphere interaction.
The event is supported by the International Association of Sedimentologists and will be the first European meeting of the FROMAGE (FRiends Of Marine AuthiGEnesis) SEPM Research Group on Marine Authigenesis.
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