Deposition of Organic Carbon-Rich Sediments in Narrow Marine Basins and Open-Marine Upwelling Environments--New Results from the Ocean Drilling Program

R. Stein

Detailed sedimentological and organic geochemical investigations have been performed on Neogene sediments from ODP site 645 (Baffin Bay), ODP site 658 (upwelling area off northwest Africa), and ODP site 679 (upwelling area off Peru). The study is mainly based on (1) data derived from total organic carbon and nitrogen analyses, Rock-Eval pyrolysis, and kerogen microscopy (2) sedimentation rates, and (3) x-ray diffraction analyses.

The main objective of this study was to point out the most important factors controlling the accumulation of organic carbon in the different sedimentary environments, such as supply of terrigenous organic matter, productivity of marine organic matter, and preservation of organic matter. These new results from the investigation of ODP sediments are compared with DSDP data from the Mesozoic Atlantic Ocean to characterize the depositional environments of Mesozoic black shales.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91032©1988 Mediterranean Basins Conference and Exhibition, Nice, France, 25-28 September 1988.