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Carbonate spherules and botryoids as lake floor cements in the East Kirkton Limestone of West Lothian, Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

Gordon M. Walkden ,
J. Roddy Irwin  and
Anthony E. Fallick
Gordon M. Walkden
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Petroleum Geology, Aberdeen University, Aberdeen AB9 2UE, U.K.
J. Roddy Irwin
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Petroleum Geology, Aberdeen University, Aberdeen AB9 2UE, U.K.
Anthony E. Fallick
Affiliation:
Isotopic Geoscience Unit, SURRC, East Kilbride, Glasgow, G75 0QU, U.K.
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Abstract

The East Kirkton Limestone is typically a carbonate/organic laminite characterised at many levels by abundant radial-fibrous calcite (RFC) spherules and by less common larger stromatolite-like accretions of laminated botryoidal RFC. The spherules are mostly c. 1 mm in diameter and have cyanophyte and chlorophyte inclusions. Some spherules enclose parallel bundles of complete cyanophyte fibres and probably grew within a living cyanophyte mat. The botryoidal accretions were commonly seeded upon wood and other exposed organic remains such as bone, and they completely enclose twigs and branches where these were held above the sediment surface. Botryoidal accretions commonly contain the remains of a benthos of cyanophytes, chlorophytes and ostracods.

Both types of calcite have carbon and oxygen stable isotope values similar to those of known fresh-water precipitates. Their stable isotope and trace element geochemistries are consistent with precipitation on the floor of a tropical fresh-water lake within a volcanic setting, but removed from the influence of any hot-spring activity. Spherules and botroids are mineralogically closely similar and, whilst precipitation may have been biogenically mediated, they are regarded as passive lake floor cements.

The carbonate laminae are dominated by rhombohedral calcite. Many of these laminae may have originated as calcite suspensoids which settled to the lake floor during relatively brief precipitation events, blanketing the normally richly organic substrate, smothering the cyanophyte mats, and leading to the preservation of individual organic laminae. Crystals later became enlarged and intergrown within the sediment, but this occurred early and prior to significant compaction, because detail of fragile and degradable organic constituents is commonly preserved. The likely source of the carbonate is through leaching of the local basic volcanic terrain. The precipitation of two types of calcite implies regular fluctuations in the chemistry of the lake waters, or in the factors controlling precipitation, which may have been a biogenic and/or seasonal effect.

Keywords

East Kirkton Limestoneradial-fibrous calcitespherulesbotroidslake floor cementsprecipitation
Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 84 , Issue 3-4: Volcanism and early terrestrial biotas , 1993 , pp. 213 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1993

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