The Denizli Basin in the West Anatolian Extensional Province in western Turkey is well‐known for its numerous travertine occurrences. A combined sedimentological, diagenetic and geochemical investigation is executed on the Ece and Faber travertines of the Ballık area, the largest travertine site in the Denizli Basin. The first aim of this study is the reconstruction of a three‐dimensional geo‐model in combination with a detailed sedimentological description from fabric to lithotype, lithofacies and geobody scale, with a focus on integrating pore‐typing. The second aim involves the delineation of the CO2‐origin of ancient travertine precipitating waters. Peloidal, phyto and dendritic lithotypes dominate the studied travertines and honeycomb and bacteriform shapes and encrusted bacterial or fungal filaments related to their fabrics suggest a microbial influence. The environment of travertine precipitation evolved from dominantly sub‐aqueous, as represented by the sub‐horizontal and biostromal reed travertine facies, to dominantly sub‐aerial in a thin water film, resulting in the cascade, waterfall and biohermal reed travertine facies. A general progradation of the travertine mound is indicated by the occurrence of stacked waterfall travertines. This results in sigmoidal clinoforms inside a general mound boundary configuration. Strontium and oxygen‐carbon isotope signatures of the travertines point to a mixing mechanism of palaeofluids with deeply originated, heavy carbon CO2 with lighter carbon CO2 of shallow origin. These deposits can thus be considered as endogenic travertines. Carbonates of the Lycian Nappes acted as main parent carbon source rocks. The relative contribution of the lighter carbon isotopes is most likely to have originated from organic matter or soil CO2. This study provides a unique three‐dimensional insight into the Ballık travertine architecture that potentially can be used as an analogue for subsurface travertine reservoirs worldwide and illustrates the importance of the combined use of δ13C and 87Sr/86Sr signatures in the delineation of the CO2‐origin of travertine precipitating waters.
The sediment-hosted stratiform Cu-Co mineralization of the Luiswishi and Kamoto deposits in the Katangan Copperbelt is hosted by the Neoproterozoic Mines Subgroup. Two main hypogene Cu-Co sulfide mineralization stages and associated gangue minerals (dolomite and quartz) are distinguished. The first is an early diagenetic, typical stratiform mineralization with finegrained minerals, whereas the second is a multistage synorogenic stratiform to stratabound mineralization with coarse-grained minerals. For both stages, the main hypogene Cu-Co sulfide minerals are chalcopyrite, bornite, carrollite, and chalcocite. These minerals are in many places replaced by supergene sulfides (e.g., digenite and covellite), especially near the surface, and are completely oxidized in the weathered superficial zone and in surface outcrops, with malachite, heterogenite, chrysocolla, and azurite as the main oxidation products. The hypogene sulfides of the first Cu-Co stage display δ 34 S values (−10.3‰ to +3.1‰ Vienna Canyon Diablo Troilite (V-CDT)), which partly overlap with the δ 34 S signature of framboidal pyrites (−28.7‰ to 4.2‰ V-CDT) and have Δ 34 S SO4-Sulfides in the range of 14.4‰ to 27.8‰. This fractionation is consistent with bacterial sulfate reduction (BSR). The hypogene sulfides of the second Cu-Co stage display δ 34 S signatures that are either similar (−13.1‰ to +5.2‰ V-CDT) to the δ 34 S values of the sulfides of the first Cu-Co stage or comparable (+18.6‰ to +21.0‰ V-CDT) to the δ 34 S of Neoproterozoic seawater. This indicates that the sulfides of the second stage obtained their sulfur by both remobilization from early diagenetic sulfides and from thermochemical sulfate reduction (TSR). The carbon (−9.9‰ to −1.4‰ Vienna Pee Dee Belemnite (V-PDB)) and oxygen (−14.3‰ to −7.7‰ V-PDB) isotope signatures of dolomites associated with the first Cu-Co stage are in agreement with the interpretation that these dolomites are by-products of BSR. The carbon (−8.6‰ to +0.3‰ V-PDB) and oxygen (−24.0‰ to −10.3‰ V-PDB) isotope signatures of dolomites associated with the second Cu-Co stage are mostly similar to the δ 13 C (−7.1‰ to +1.3‰ V-PDB) and δ 18 O (−14.5‰ to −7.2‰ V-PDB) of the host rock and of the dolomites of the first Cu-Co stage. This Editorial handling: H. Frimmel Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article
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