Abstract

In modern ooid-forming environments in the Caribbean, aerobic respiration of organic matter below the sediment–water interface drives an increase in pCO₂ and a corresponding decrease in carbonate saturation state (Ω) that creates shallow sediment porewater that is neutral or slightly caustic to carbonate. The locus of ooid growth, therefore, is presumed to be in the water column during suspension, where supersaturation with respect to calcium carbonate is the norm. In the past, however, during conditions of low aqueous O₂, high Ω, or low organic-matter input, the shallow sub-sediment marine burial environment was conducive to carbonate precipitation.

Here we present petrographic and electron probe microanalyzer (EPMA) data from exquisitely preserved oolites through time that suggests that some ancient ooids may have grown within the sediment pile. We propose that each increment of ooid cortical growth originated as incipient isopachous marine cement formed during shallow burial within migrating ooid dunes. After a period of burial (∼ weeks to months), ooids were remobilized and rounded during bedload transport.

This “bedform model” for ooid growth explains: 1) why ancient ooids are not limited by the precipitation–abrasion balance that appears to prohibit modern tangential Caribbean ooids from achieving grain sizes larger than coarse sand, 2) the radial crystal fabric that defines the internal structure of many ancient ooids, and 3) the first-order correlation of the abundance of large and giant ooids in the rock record to periods with predicted high porewater Ω. This model implies that photosynthetic microbes were unimportant for growth of large and giant ooid but it remains agnostic to the effect of other microbes. The physical and chemical milieu of modern marine ooid-forming environments is perhaps not the best analogue for ancient ooid-forming environments; this should be considered when using ancient ooids to reconstruct secular trends in ocean chemistry.