Miocene Reef Carbonates of Mariana Islands

Henry G. Siegrist, Jr.

Miocene carbonates in the southern Mariana Islands are impressive for their lithologic diversity, thicknesses (over 250 m), and geographic extent (> 20% combined outcrop coverage over four major high islands: Guam, Rota, Tinian and Saipan). Sections are dominated either by lagoonal algal-foraminiferal wackestones and mudstones with locally abundant high-energy shelly-skeletal facies, or by rubbly to muddy, fore-reef-to-bank deposits of packstones and grainstones with highly diverse and variable biogenic clasts. Fresh to deeply weathered volcaniclastic material may comprise at least 80% of some high-energy fore-reef facies, whereas lagoonal and bank deposits usually contain less than 0.5% terrigenous material.

Surprisingly, the Miocene in the Marianas lacks almost completely any reef-core facies. Several poorly developed coral-rich mounds on Saipan and localized laminated red algal buildups on Guam appear to constitute the extant reef-wall facies in the Miocene. The lack of buildups may be a matter of differential survival; it may result from headland erosion and benching associated with emergence of narrow reef tracts as has been postulated by others for south Guam. Alternatively, we are proposing that Miocene bathymetry and the volume of terrigenous influx militated against significant reef core formation.

Radiometric age dating of these reef carbonates has proven unsuccessful because pervasive diagenesis has transformed the entire Miocene section into low-magnesium calcite with minor and occasional dolomite. Freshwater phreatic diagenesis accounts for the principal porosity variation and trace element distribution.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91030©1988 AAPG Annual Convention, Houston, Texas, 20-23 March 1988.