|
Article |
1 Department of Geology, School of Geography & Geology, University of St Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9ST, UK
2 Department of Historical Geology & Paleontology, Sölvegatan 13, S223 62 Lund, Sweden
Geochemical analysis of two distinctive bentonites and their constituent apatite crystals from the Late Llandovery of Gotland, has provided unique chemical signatures for each bentonite. These data have allowed the beds to be correlated across the island. The chemical composition of constituent apatite crystals indicates that apatite crystallized in a transitional alkaline environment. Chemical and mineralogical evidence suggests that the earlier Lusklint Bentonite originated from a potassic magma generated in a waning subduction zone, while the later Ireviken Bentonite was not consanguinous with its predecessor, but was derived from a medium-K calc-alkaline magma produced in a continental margin environment. The volcanoes which gave rise to these bentonites probably lay in the Tornquist Sea, during its late stages of closure, somewhere between southern Poland and Denmark. These chemically distinct bentonites could act as sensitive chemostratigraphic tools for correlation of Late Llandovery horizons elsewhere in Northern Europe.
This article has been cited by other articles:
![]() |
T. Kiipli, L. Jeppsson, T. Kallaste, and U. Soderlund Correlation of Silurian bentonites from Gotland and the eastern Baltic using sanidine phenocryst composition, and biostratigraphical consequences Journal of the Geological Society, 2008; 165: 211 - 220. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
S. SHARMA, G. R. DIX, and M. VILLENEUVE Petrology and potential tectonic significance of a K-bentonite in a Taconian shale basin (eastern Ontario, Canada), northern Appalachians Geological Magazine, 2005; 142: 145 - 158. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
R. A. Batchelor and R. A. Batchelor Geochemistry of biotite in metabentonites as an age discriminant, indicator of regional magma sources and potential correlating tool Mineralogical Magazine, 2003; 67: 807 - 817. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||