Section 1

INTRODUCTION - CLASSIFICATION OF MARINE EVAPORITES

B. Charlotte Schreiber

Queens College, City University of New York

and
Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, Columbia University
Evaporites were classified by Krumbein and Sloss (1963) on
the basis of their environmental relationships, particularly with
respect to the under- and over-lying sedimentary sequences. The
scope of knowledge that went into establishing this
classification was limited to deposits developed in cratonic
(continental crust) areas of the world. The advent of the
concept of sea-floor spreading, together with new data collected
by the Deep Sea Drilling Project and extensive submarine seismic
surveys, both on the continental margins and in the deep-sea,
enables us to classify evaporitic sediments on the basis of
tectonic setting as well as sediment affinities. The various
divisions are in a sense artificial; the one classification
readily overlaps with the other, and each of the groupings may
grade through time and space into another.

CRATON PROPER (CONTINENTAL CRUST)

Continental

Dominated by meteoric water input

(surface and subsurface). Found in
Playa Basin tectonic basins and stable interior
depressions. May be interrupted by
? episodes of marine flooding. Commonly
interbedded with
f redbeds. This

f-
,-. CONTINENTAL, \
I CRUST ' association did not become
until the upper Paleozoic.
common

Shallow Epeiric Sea

Dominated by marine input, with

transgressive and regressive cycles
Evuporite Basn EpejriC across a stable interior platform.
Se01 Sedimentary sequence may be either:
.I T,rn pora'rieN (1) RED BEDS or (2) NORMAL MARINE
J J
4...
s-
EVAPORITES EVAPORITES
CONTINENTAL CRUST "
NORMAL MARINE RED BEDS

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 Association (1) is most common in the
upper Paleozoic. This is the sequence
one would expect if a normal marine
basin became restricted but the marine
connection remained throughout evaporite
deposition. Final basin filling results
in succession to red beds. Association
(2) is relatively rare. This is the
sequence one would expect from a marine
transgression over an arid area with
initial basin restriction.

Basinal: Epeiric Sea

Marine water input filled or partly

filled a basin in which deepening
preceeded and continued during
Bar ier sedimentation. The sedimentary sequence
7 ?2 typically consists of evaporites
sandwiched between normal marine strata.
Epeiric This association is common in the lower
Sea and less
-I Paleozoic, but becomes less
common in the upper Paleozoic, probably
CONTINENTAL CRUST because the extent of "normal marine"
conditions declined throughout the
Paleozoic. This association is also
common in the Cretaceous when "normal
marine" conditions again became common.

STABLE CONTINENTAL MARGIN (CONTINENTAL CRUST)

Terrigenous Marine Margin

\ Evaporites Dominated by marine water input
I-
S%
with possible estuarine interfingering.
'
r.open

Associated with deltas, barrier bars,

'DeIta and sapropels. Sedimentray sequence
I -, commonly consists of evaporites
CONTINENTAL CRUST\ sandwiched between clastic deltaic beds.

Carbonate Marine Margin

Dominated by marine water input

with possible estuarine interfingering.
'Ít 7D
Evapori tes
Associated with
carbonate banks.
reefs, shoals,
Sedimentary
and
sequence
. .
:: Open
- Ocean
commonly consists of
/
I
, Ree 0

NONMARINE CARBONATES AND EVAPORITES

CONTINENTAL CRUST
EVAPORITES

MARINE CARBONATES

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 RIFTED CONTINENTAL MARGIN
(ATTENUATED CONTINENTAL CRUST AND ASSOCIATED OCEANIC CRUST)
Rifted continental margins may fall into a number of
possible tectonic subdivisions. Each of these, because of their
style of subsidence, would have a different succession of
sediments. The following classification of evaporite deposits
relative to rifted continental margins is from Kinsman (1974).

Converging Lithospheric Plates

Evaporite basins formed between two converg ing lithospheric
plates probably did not occur very often, and any evaporites that
did form would probably be destroyed by subsequent plate
collision. A spectacular example of this type of evaporite
deposit is the Messinian evaporites of the Mediterranean Sea
(e.g. Kinsman, 1974; HstI, 1972; Hstl and others, 1973).
Diverging Lithospheric Plates
Evaporite basins formed by the rupture of a continental
plate are the most important of the continental margin
evaporites, and commonly form halite-dominant deposits several
kilometers thick. Deposits of this type occur along most of the
margins of the north and south Atlantic Ocean, along much of the
Indian Ocean, in the Red Sea, and probably along most of the
Arctic Ocean (Kinsman, 1974).

SHO R E

COSTL PLAIN SLOPE OCEAN FLOOR

40 Km

Figure 1.1. A diagram indicating the sediment loading capacity

of a fully
loaded, mature, diverging rifted continental
margin and adjacent ocean crust. Numbers refer to evolving
sediment sequence in millions of years after continental
rupture (from Kinsman, 197),

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 Figure 1.1 is a summary diagram of what a divergently rifted
continental margin might look like perhaps loo million years
after the rifting. Kinsman (1975 and 1974) pointed out that if
evaporiteS are present, they should be older than 20 million
years, at the base of the maximum thickness of the sediment pile.
They would be present within the original rift and also on the
new ocean floor.
The sedimentary successions that accumulate along various
parts of either a converging or diverging rifted margin may be as
follows:

1) (2) (3)
(

NORMAL MARINE NORMAL MARINE NORMAL MARINE

NON-MARINE EVAPORITES MARINE EVAPORITES MARINE EVAPORITES

CONTINENTAL RED BEDS NON-MARINE EVAPORITES OCEANIC CRUST

MARINE EVAPORITES CONTINENTAL RED BEDS

NORMAL MARINE CONTINENTAL CRUST

CONTINENTAL CRUST
Other variations could occur, depending in part on the type of
rifting, and in part on the prerift history.
Oceanic basins such as the
Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, and the
Gulf of Mexico, have, or have had at
various times, somewhat restricted
access to marine water inflow and
interchange. The records of such
episodes of limited inflow are preserved
in the sediments of the basins. In the
upper Tertiary of the Mediterranean, the
best sampled of such basins, deep-water open-marine sediments
occur both below and above a deposit of evaporites as much as two
kilometers thick. This occurrence implies that the basin was
initially open marine and deep, that it then became hypersaline,
and finally returned to normal open-marine conditions.

upperTertiary basin occupied by the Mediterranean Sea

The
was evidently deep in the morphologic sense, and remained so
throughout the formation of the evaporites. The question which
arises is that of the depth of water during the episode of
evaporite deposition. Was the basin initially full of brine, or
was it partly or wholly dried out? The ensuing sections on
sabkhas, subaqueous gypsum, and geochemistry have been designed
to help define the answer to this question. The section on
subsurface interpretation explains some of the methods employed
in groping for meaning from evaporite deposits sight unseen.

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 REFERENCES CITED

Hstl, K. J., 1972, Origin of saline giants - a critical review

after discovery of the Mediterranean evaporite: Earth-Sd.
Reviews, y. 8, p. 371-396.
Hsll, K. J., Ryan, W. B. F., and Cita, M. B., 1973, Late Miocene
desiccation of the Mediterranean: Nature, y. 247, p.
240-2 44.
Kinsman, D. J. J. , 1975, Rift valley basins and sedimentary
history of trailing continental margins, in Fischer, A. G.,
and Judson, S. (eds.), Petroleum and global tectonics:
Princeton, N. J., Princeton University Press, p. 83-126.
, 1974, Evaporite deposits of continental margins, in Fourth
Symposium on Salt: Cleveland, Ohio, Northern Ohio Geol.
Society, y. 1, p. 255-259.
, 1975, Salt floors to geosynclines: Nature, y. 255, p.
375-3 78.
Krumbein, W. C., and Sloss, L. L.,1963, Stratigraphy and
Sedimentation: San Francisco, W. H. Freeman and Co., 660 p.

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