Print this pageAbstract: Regional Cementation Patterns in Mississippian Limestones of Southern New Mexico and Arizona
Cement stratigraphy based on cathodoluminescense and staining has allowed correlation of major zones in Mississippian crinoid-syntaxial calcite cements over an area of 10,000 sq mi (3,048 m). Nine cement zones have been identified in which four are aerially extensive and volumetrically important. Eight out of the nine are interpreted as dominantly meteoric phreatic on the basis of previous studies. Petrography of calcarenites in the upper 30 ft (10 m) of Mississippian strata shows that all cements except in the latest zone are pre-Pennsylvanian. Cement in the latest zone is post-Mississippian.
The model proposed is one of cementation within dominantly meteoric-phreatic lenses that moved southward through the Mississippian sediments during the major regional pre-Pennsylvanian regression. Evidence for this regressive model is the fact that all zones except the final one had precipitated before the pre-Pennsylvanian subaerial weathering, and the addition of progressively younger zones southward. The distribution of these older zones suggests that they were precipitated in a shallow flow system probably recharged mainly through the unconformity.
AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90968©1977 AAPG-SEPM Annual Convention and Exhibition, Washington, DC