Contributions to
Contrib Mineral Petrol (I 981) 76 :401~12
Geochemistry of Evaporite-Bearing Series:
A Tentative Guide for the Identification of Metaevaporites
B. Moine l" 2, p. Sauvan 3, and J. Jarousse ~
Laboratoire de P6trographie, ERA 805 du CNRS, Universit~ Claude Bernard, 27-43 Bd du II Novembre, F-69622 Villeurbanne Cedex,
France
2 Centre de Recherches P6trographiques et G6ochimiques, 15 rue N.D. des Pauvres, F-54500 Vand~euvre-Nancy,France
3 Soci6t6 Nationale Elf Aquitaine (SNEA(P)), centre Micoulau, Avenue du Pr6sident Angot, F-64000 Pau, France
Abstract. Literature on metasedimentary rocks indicates that
former evaporites have been assumed where brines are present
as fluid inclusions or minerals such as scapolite, tourmaline and
lazurite, which are considered as evidence of equilibria with
brines. Very few works take into account the chemical composi-
tion of rocks, because chemical data on evaporite-bearing sedi-
mentary series are scarce.
This paper is a contribution to a geochemical approach:
172 analyses of major and trace elements are given on argillites,
dolomitic marls and mixed sulphate rocks from some large eva-
poritic series, mainly from the Triassic of France, the Devonian
of the Canning Basin and the Proterozoic of the Amadeus Basin
in Australia. Compared with rocks from common platform se-
ries, these samples clearly exhibit specific chemical features: high
Mg contents, high Mg/Ca ratios except for Ca-sulphate-rich
rocks and relatively low iron contents caused by the widespread
occurrence of Mg-rich clay minerals. Though sulphate-bearing
rocks often show low Mg/Ca ratios, their chemical composition
clearly indicates Mg-rich clay fractions. K content is high while
Na is low, except in a few halite-bearing rocks. Argillites are
characterized by high Li and F contents, and high Li/Mg and
B/A1 ratios, while major amounts of Sr are recorded in sulphate-
bearing rocks.
Application to metamorphic series is discussed with some
illustrative examples. Though chemical changes during metamor-
phism are probably frequent in series of evaporitic origin, some
relations between A1, Fe, Mg, Ca are often maintained. Under
nearly isochemical conditions, the resulting metasediments exhib-
it abundant phlogopite through a large part of the metamorphic
column, owing to high Mg, K and F contents. Such rocks are,
for instance, well developed in the Zambian Copperbelt, Central
Africa. Although further investigations are needed both on non-
metamorphic and metamorphic evaporite sequences, the effi-
ciency of this approach for identifying an evaporitic origin is
well established.
Introduction
Recognizing an initial evaporitic character in metamorphosed
series is interesting from different points of view. Accurate paleo-
geographic and geotectonic reconstructions are involved, as well
as metallogenetic considerations. Relationships do exist between
some P b - Z n - B a - F strata-bound ore deposits and borders of
Reprint requests to." B. Moine
Mineralogy and
Petrology
9 Springer-Verlag 1981
evaporitic basins, and between' Kupferschiefer'-type copper con-
centrations and sequences grading to evaporites. This is a wide
and difficult field of investigation in which much work is still
to be done.
Evaporites, i.e. mainly halite and anhydrite/gypsum, are rare-
ly observed in metamorphic series. Halokinetic processes, as
well as the drastic rise in NaC1 solubility in water with increased
temperature, can easily account for the disappearance of halite
as soon as metamorphism occurs, i.e. at 200 ~ 300~ C. Thick
anhydrite beds are often observed in epizonal areas (examples
quoted in Jarousse 1978) whereas such rocks are only described
in very restricted areas and generally as small occurrences in
deeper metamorphic zones (Brown and Engel 1956 ; Noizet 1969 ;
Nash 1972; Serdyuchenko 1975; Kulke 1976a; Leake etal.
1979). The scarcity of anhydrite is not clearly explained. Its
density is very close to that of carbonates, and its solubility
in water decreases when the temperature increases. Blount and
Dickson (l 969) studied the anhydrite solubility in H20 + NaC1,
temperatures ranging from 100~176 C and pressures from 1
to 1,000 bars. Accepting some extrapolation, one could expect
a decrease in solubility of anhydrite in 2 3 tool NaC1 solutions
under a 50~ C kin- 1 thermal gradient during diagenesis and in
very low-grade metamorphism, and thereafter an increasing solu-
bility, such that anhydrite would be approximately as soluble
at low-medium grade transition (Winkler 1974) as it is in surface
conditions. These results may contribute to explain the stability
of anhydrite in low-grade conditions; they can, however, hardly
provide us with a guide to understanding its scarcity in deeper
metamorphic zones where anhydrite solubility is still very low
and porosity of the rocks is strongly reduced. The main controls
ofanhydrite stability are likely to befco2,fo2 andfs2 in equilibria
involving carbonates or silicates. Observations showing large
replacements of sulphates by carbonates (dolomite or calcite)
are described by Speed and Clayton (1975), Walker et al. (1977)
and Mc Clay and Carlie (1978) in rocks having undergone a
very low-grade metamorphism. Thermochemical calculations
support this possibility and indicate that reactions between anhy-
drite, quartz and sheet silicates may occur over a wide range
of P, T conditions for normal values offco2, fo2 and fs2. Thus,
reactions in mixed sulphate rocks can be expected to be similar
to those in mixed carbonate rocks. However, they have not
yet been studied because of the complexity of the involved pa-
rameters.
Accordingly, the search for an evaporitic origin in metamor-
phic series is mainly based on indirect approaches. Previous
studies emphasized the occurrence of Na-, C1-, SO4-, F-, B-
bearing minerals such as scapolites (Hietanen 1967; Serdyuchen-
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402

ko 1975), Mg-tourmaline (Abraham et al. 1972), lazurite (Kulke AQUITAINE BASIN

1976a; Hogarth and Griffin 1978) as indicators of aqueous solu- SPR.1 LV.1

tions inherited from evaporitic sedimentary piles or resulting

from the leaching of salts. Study of fluid inclusions has also
been applied in this way, leading to relevant results (Rich 1975).
Such features, however, can rarely be interpreted in a univocal
way.
In this paper, the authors intend to make a different and
complementary contribution by studying specific chemical fea-
tures of rocks exhibiting high clay contents in evaporitic se-
quences. Magnesium-rich silicates, such as Mg-smectites, corren- i
site, Mg-chlorites, attapulgite, sepiolite, are often found in these PARIS BASIN

rocks. Unfortunately, few chemical data on whole rocks showing , CL.1

a definite magnesian character as a result of the abundance

of such minerals are available. They concern corrensite-bearing
marls from British Keuper (Davis 1967), sepiolite or Mg-smec-
tite-bearing claystones from cenozoic continental basins in south-
eastern France (Trauth 1974) and triassic shales from North
=a --
Africa (Kulke 1976b, 1978). These preliminary results provide
us with a useful guide. Thus Kulke (1976a) and Schreyer (1977)
assigned an evaporitic origin to 'white-schists', i.e. A 1 - M g rocks
generated under high-pressure conditions and exhibiting a talc-
kyanite association.
Our aim is to present a significant number of chemical data
on some platform evaporitic series in order to identify them
in metamorphic rocks. Thus, special attention will be paid to
elements assumed to be relatively inert during metamorphism
and to the discrimination between evaporitic and common plat-
form series.

)CKS
Sediments
SANDSTONE
Investigated Material ARGILITE *
CARBONATE
The study mainly deals with the Triassic from France and the Devonian
from the Canning Basin in Australia; a few samples from the Upper MARL

Proterozoie of the Amedeus Basin, Australia, were also investigated. LIMESTONE

As far as the French Triassic is concerned, analyses were performed
on five boreholes from the Paris Basin and on 34 boreholes from DOLOSTONE

the Aquitaine Basin. The investigated boreholes were selected in various SULPHATE
depositional areas of both basins. In the Paris Basin, the Triassic
HAL{TE
deposits are relatively thin, no more than a few hundreds metres.
They belong to the 'German-type', at the bottom the Buntsandstein BASIC SILL
mainly made up of sandstones, then the Muschelkalk formation, in- AYS
cluding dolomites, shales and anhydrite and finally a more marked ILLITE
evaporitic character spreading out in the uppermost Keuper formation
with prevailing argillaceous rocks, including gypsum/anhydrite and ILLITE - SMECTITE

halite developments (CL 1 borehole, Fig. 1). In the Aquitaine Basin, I CHLORITE
the Triassic succession is roughly the same, though the sediments
are much thicker than in the Paris Basin, i.e. around 2,000 m, Keuper CORI~ENSITE

alone reaching as much as 1,000 m. This feature, as well as the occur-
rence of basic volcanic sheets and lenses ('ophites'), is related to the
proximity of a mobile belt. The paleogeographic reconstruction (Ste-
vaux and Winnock 1974) shows variations from the centre of the
depositional areas containing widespread evaporites (e.g. borehole SPR
1, Fig. 1), toward the margins (and buried ridges) where terrigenous
deposits are largely dominant with abundant carbonate rocks (e.g.
borehole LV 1). Similar paleogeographic variation occurs also in the
Paris Basin.
In the Canning Basin, only one borehole has been studied, in
which a thick (about 2,500 m) sequence, attributed to the Devonian,
includes, from the bottom to the top, carbonates and halite, calcitic
and dolomitic shales, and sandstones topped by dolomite and anhy-
drite. Analyses were performed on the shaly member of this series
(Fig. 1).
From the available core (and sometimes cuttings) samples, a prima-
ry macroscopic study allowed us to select 300 samples representing
various ]ithotogic intervals. Nevertheless, this selection has been fo-
KAOLINITE
CORE SAMPLES
CUTTINGS SAMPLES
Fig. 1. Some examples of the investigated boreholes (see text for loca-
tion) showing lithology, composition of the clay fraction and situation
of the studied samples
cussed on rocks having high clay contents, since the clay minerals
bear highly abundant chemical information expected to have been
preserved during metamorphism.
Study of the mineral composition by X-ray diffractometry led
to the selection of a further set of 172 out of the original 300 samples,
on which the following analyses were done:
The following analyses were done:
1. Quantitative determintion of SiO2, A1203, total iron as F%O3,
MgO, CaO, MnO, Na20, K20, TiO2, ignition loss and some trace