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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 66 (1982)

Issue: 9. (September)

First Page: 1446

Last Page: 1446

Title: Illite/Smectite Diagenesis: Relation to Coal Rank in Tertiary Sediments of Pacific Northwest: ABSTRACT

Author(s): D. R. Pevear

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

Bentonite partings formed by alteration of air-fall tephra interbedded with coal in three Eocene coal basins (Tulameen, British Columbia; Chuckanut and Centralia, Washington) record the nature of arc volcanism and subsequent diagenesis and metamorphism. Euhedral feldspar phenocrysts, embayed quartz, and relict glass shards demonstrate volcanic provenance, whereas the absence of muscovite, microcline, and other nonvolcanic minerals indicates lack of epiclastic detritus. At Tulameen, abundant sanidine and biotite indicate rhyolitic tephra; at Centralia, plagioclase and absence of quartz and K-spar indicate dacite. Absence of K-spar from Chuckanut deposits may be due to its destruction by metamorphism, since quartz phenocrysts are present, suggesting rhyolite.

Alteration of glassy tephra to bentonite has taken place in two or three steps. (1) Leaching (weathering) in the swamp may have formed allophane or halloysite, but much glass remained unaltered. (2) Early diagenesis at temperatures below 60°C (suggested by vitrinite Ro = 0.40%) formed, by reaction of non-phenocrystic components with pore fluids within individual partings, one of five assemblages depending on degree of prior leaching: zeolite-smectite-cristobalite, smectite-cristobalite, smectite, smectite-kaolinite, kaolinite. Na-smectite at Centralia inherited interlayer Na from original glass. Delicate vermicular kaolinite may also have formed during this stage. (3) Thermal metamorphism has transformed smectite in some Tulameen and all Chuckanut partings to regularly interlayered illite/smectite (I/S). At Tulameen (R = 1 ordered I/S with 55% I + kaolinite), the source of potassium for the reaction was solution of phenocrystic sanidine and mica; Ro = 0.9% suggests 130 to 200°C. The Chuckanut bentonites (R = 1 and R>=3 ordered with 65 to 90% I + chlorite) show Ro = 3% suggesting temperatures exceeded 300°C; some potassium may have been derived from outside the parting, and more complete illitization may have been inhibited by lack of potassium and by calcium released during albitization of plagioclase.

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