Cement stratigraphy of the Lisburne Group, northeastern Brooks Range, Alaska

Cement stratigraphy serves as a descriptive framework for the interpretation of the diagenetic history of the Carboniferous Lisburne Group, northeastern Brooks Range, Alaska. The Lisburne is a sequence of shallow-water, marine carbonate rocks that have experienced a wide spectrum of diagenetic events: early marine diagenesis, early subaerial exposure, significant erosion and karstification following final Lisburne deposition, deep burial of at least 3,000 meters, compressional tectonism, and final uplift into modern mountain ranges. Compositional zones in the calcite cements were identified by using stains for ferroan calcite and cathodoluminescence microscopy. The cements are, from oldest to youngest: A1-nonferroan, nonluminescent or multibanded calcite; B1-nonferroan to low-ferroan, dull luminescent calcite; C1-ferroan, very-dull luminescent calcite; B2-nonferroan, dull luminescent calcite; A2-nonferroan calcite with 1 or 2 sets of nonluminescent and bright zones; C2-ferroan, very-dull luminescent calcite; Be-nonferroan, dull luminescent calcite. Petrographic studies of cross-cutting relationships show that A1 cements predate or are synchronous with surfaces of subaerial exposure within the Lisburne Group. The cross-cutting relationships include truncation of cements by early fractures, non-marine fissure fills, and at clast margins of autoclastic breccias. Similarly, B1 and C1 cements predate the major unconformity at the top of the Lisburne Group, hence, these cements are pre-Permian in agemore » and may well have precipitated from fresh groundwaters introduced during development of the sub-Permian unconformity. B2 and C2 cements are present in the Permian Echooka formation overlying the Lisburne Group and, thus, can be dated as post-Pennsylvanian. B3 cements are Cretaceous or younger in age.« less