Fracture dolomite as an archive of continental palaeo-environmental conditions
Andre Baldermann, Florian Mittermayr, Stefano M. Bernasconi, Martin Dietzel, Cyrill Grengg, Dorothee Hippler, Tobias Kluge, Albrecht Leis, Ke Lin, Xianfeng Wang, Andrea Zünterl, Ronny Boch
Abstract
Abstract The origin of Quaternary dolomites in continental environments (e.g. karst and lakes) is barely constrained compared to marine dolomites in sedimentary records. Here we present a study of dolomite and aragonite formations infilling young fractures of the ‘Erzberg’ iron ore deposit, Austria, under continental-meteoric and low temperature conditions. Two dolomite generations formed shortly after the Last Glacial Maximum (~20 kyr BP): dolomite spheroids and matrix dolomite. Clumped isotope measurements and U/Th disequilibrium ages reveal formation temperatures of 0–3 °C (±6 °C) and 3–20 °C (±5 °C) for the both dolomite types, and depositional ages around 19.21 ± 0.10 kyr BP and 13.97 ± 0.08 kyr BP or younger, respectively. Meteoric solution and carbonate isotope compositions (δ 18 O, δ 13 C and 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) indicate the dolomites formed via aragonite and high-Mg calcite precursors from CO 2 -degassed, Mg-rich solutions. Our study introduces low temperature dolomite formations and their application as a sedimentary-chemical archive.