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Age, origin and climatic signal of English Mesozoic clays based on K/Ar signatures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2018

C. V. Jeans*
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Downing StreetCambridge CB2 3EQ
J. G. Mitchell
Affiliation:
29 Greystoke Park, GosforthNewcastle upon Tyne NE3 2DZ
M. J. Fisher
Affiliation:
Nevis Associates Ltd., Helensburgh, Argyll and Bute, G84 8DD
D. S. Wray
Affiliation:
School of Earth Sciences, University of Greenwich, PembrokeChatham Maritime, Kent ME4 4AW, UK
I. R. Hall
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Downing StreetCambridge CB2 3EQ
*

Abstract

The K/Ar characteristics of 53 clay assemblages (Triassic–Cretaceous), representing the detrital, volcanogenic and arid-facies clay mineral associations, are interpreted in relation to their mineralogy, chronostratic age and geological origins. The K-bearing mineral components of the 1–2 μm, 0.2–1 μm and <0.2 μm fractions of each clay assemblage together display one of two characteristic patterns of K2O and 40Ar values (the K/Ar signature of the assemblage) on a 40Ar/K2O correlation diagram. Interpretation of the K/Ar signatures indicates that: (1) all of these clay assemblages are apparently unaffected by burial diagenetic illitization; (2) the Jurassic and Cretaceous detrital clay assemblages are derived from the reworking of weathered Caledonian metasediments (420 500 Ma) and weathered kaolin-bearing sediments of Upper Devonian/ Carboniferous age; and (3) the role played by palaeoclimate in developing the pattern of clay minerals in the Mesozoic sediments of England is much less significant than previously believed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2001

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