ISSN 01458752, Moscow University Geology Bulletin, 2015, Vol. 70, No. 4, pp. 350–353. © Allerton Press, Inc.

, 2015.
Original Russian Text © V.N. Kholodov, 2015, published in Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Geologiya, 2015, No. 4, pp. 86–89.

Clarifying the Definition of a Sedimentary Rock

and the Thermodynamic Environment in the Lower Stratisphere
V. N. Kholodov
Institute of Geology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Department of Geology, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
email: rostislavn@yandex.ru
Received March 30, 2015

Abstract—It is shown that the definition of a sedimentary rock that has been given by the classical lithologists
L.V. Pustovalov, M.S. Shvetsov, L.B. Rukhin, and U.H. Twonhozhel, among others, does not conform to the
modern understanding of the sedimentary process, which covers not only the surface of the planet, but also
the Earth’s deep interior with high thermodynamic indices (a pressure of up to 8100 kgf/cm and a tempera
ture of up to 800–900°C).

Keywords: stratisphere, sedimentary rock, stages of sedimentary process, diagenesis, catagenesis

DOI: 10.3103/S0145875215040043

INTRODUCTION depth of the Pacific Ocean. Thus, the zone of sedi

The fact that sedimentary rocks are formed in five
stages that are conventionally divided into two main
stages, viz., sedimentary and rock forming, was men
tioned several times by N.M. Strakhov in his works, for
1 ment–volcanogenic shell, which is composed of com
example in (1957).
At the first stage, as a result of the failure of mag
matic, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks of catch
ment areas (lithosphere protrusions), loose sediments
are formed that later generate sedimentary rocks. At
the second stage, these are compacted and trans
formed; different types of sedimentary rocks occur due
to the diagenic and catagenic processes.
It is generally known that the sediments from
which sedimentary rocks originate are formed within a
sedimentformation zone at the boundary of the litho
sphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the bio
sphere in the continental (149 × 106 km2) and oceanic
blocks of the Earth (361 × 106 km2). Near the surface,
here on the continents, the atmospheric pressure is
almost stable (~1 atm) and the temperature varies
from –90°C to +60°C; in contrast, in the seas and
oceans the temperature is almost stable; it reflects the
variations in the air temperature down to a depth of
200 m, while deeper it changes from 0 to –4°C,
whereas the hydrostatic pressure increases with depth
in accordance with the gradient of a 10m water col
umn that is equal to 1 atm; which means that the
hydrostatic pressure reaches 1090 atm at the greatest
1 The convention of identifying the stages in the sedimentary pro
cess was considered by the author in earlier works (Kholodov,
2004 and 2006).
ment formation differs in a quite broad range of varia
tion in pressure and temperature.
The geological processes that occur in the zone of
sediment formation create the Earth’s layered sedi
pacted and altered formations. As a part of the lithos
phere from the bottom and laterally, this discontinu
ous shell of the planet is confined by the distribution of
metamorphic and magmatic rocks.
The stratisphere was first identified by E. Zyuss,
V.I. Vernadskii, and L.V. Pustovalov (1940); it was
qualitatively studied by A.B. Ronov (1993). It is charac
terized by thermodynamic indices that are quite high.
The pressure reaches 1850 atm, while the temperature
is close to +150°C within continental block at the
lower boundary of the stratisphere at an average thickness
of 561 km. When the sediment thickness is at its maxi
mum (25–27 km), the pressure is 6000–7000 atm and
the temperature approaches +800°C; in this case, a
clear boundary is not established between the sedimen
tary cover and metamorphic formations. The conven
tional boundary usually goes along the assumed bound
ary of the platform basement, although it is highly prob
able that the greenstone transformations of the
regional metamorphism cover a part of the sedimen
tary cover here.
According to the ideas of F.G. Turner (1951) and
N.A. Eliseev (1959), as well as F.G. Turner, J. Verhoogen
(1961), and other researchers, the boundary between
the lower and a highertemperature facies of green
schists lies at the muscovite–chlorite and biotite–
chlorite associations of autigeneous minerals in a
clayey strata.

350
 CLARIFYING THE DEFINITION OF A SEDIMENTARY ROCK
In general, we may state that various partly loose
sediments originate in various physical–geographical
environments of the sediment formation zone, which
later move to the “store room” of nature, the strati
sphere, where they become mature; undergo compac
tion, transformation, and deformation; generate gas–
water fluids; and are preserved.
We note that since the time when lithology, or the
study of sedimentary rocks and ores, separated from
general petrography as an independent science in the
1920s, the definition of sedimentary rocks has clearly
overestimated the sedimentary stage of rock formation
and obviously underestimated the final stages of rock
formation.
In fact, even the first works by V.P. Baturin (1932)
and A.N. Zavaritskii (1932) emphasized the fact that
sedimentary rocks are formed under thermodynamic
conditions of the Earth’s surface shell. A similar defi
nition for the conditions of the formation of sedimen
tary rocks that was accepted by M.S. Shvetsov (1958)
and N.V. Logvinenko (1984). L.V. Pustovalov (1940),
L.B. Rukhin (1953), G.I. Teodorovich (1958), V.T. Frolov
(1992), and B.K. Proshlyakov and V.G. Kuznetsov
(1991), as well as V.G. Kuznetsov (2007) and
O.V. Yapaskurt (2008), expanded the characteristics of
the thermodynamic environment of sedimentaryrock
formation somewhat by stating that it is typical of the
entire nearsurface shell of the planet.
Thus, lithologists have not examined meaningful
deep phenomena that leave their imprints on the min
eralogical composition, texture, occurrence condi
tions, and fluid dynamics of sedimentary strata.
The author believes that the above data on the ther
modynamic environment of the formation of sedi
ments and sedimentary rocks lead to the following
definition of these rocks: loose sediments, as well as
compacted sedimentary rocks, are a result of the failure
of magmatic, metamorphic, and sedimentary lithospheric
rocks associated with volcanogenic–sedimentary phe
nomena and are produced by terrigeneous, chemogemic,
and biogenic processes in the thermodynamic environ
ments of the zone of sediment formation and the strati
sphere. This definition is certain to attract the atten
tion of lithologists to the transformation of sedimen
tary rocks in the deep segments of the stratisphere at a
relatively high temperature and pressure.
The author has shown in several works (Kholodov,
1983, 2004, 2006, and 2013) that sediments begin the
long path of transformation to sedimentary rocks
immediately after they are settled in various physical–
geographical environments of the sediment formation
zone.
In the subaqueous environments of sedimentary
basins, each subsequent sediment layer overlaps the
previous one and contributes to its compaction and
dehydration. As the sediment accumulates, the lower
layers are deeply submerged into the stratisphere and
enter a region of increased temperature and geostatic
MOSCOW UNIVERSITY GEOLOGY BULLETIN Vol. 70
351
pressure; in their turn, they are transformed under the
actions of these factors.
As geological time passes, each layer slowly moves
downward and only tectonic inversions and uplifts
occasionally halt and even reverse the direction of
movement.
The upper segments of the sedimentary section that
are in close diffusive and hydrodynamic association
with the waters of the source reservoir are often an
open physicochemical system from the physicochem
ical point of view, whereas the lower, most compacted,
and often isolated segments of the section exhibit all of
the features of a closed physicochemical system, with
all of the issues that arise from it. In any case, the
hydrodynamic isolation of certain segments from the
sedimentary strata in general is substantially intensi
fied during the descent of strata.
A typical feature of the stratisphere, or the Earth’s
sedimentary–volcanogenic shell, is that it hosts two
types of sedimentary rocks, viz., plastic and hard.
The plastic rocks include clays, coals, evaporates
(salts), black shales, peats, marlstones, and certain
limestones. These rocks are compacted and are deflu
idized deeper in the Earth; their porosity and perme
ability decrease and they transform into weakly per
meable bodies; oil workers call these cap rocks.
The hard rocks comprise sands, sandstones, grav
elites, conglomerates, certain limestones, gaizes, rot
tenstones, and other siliceous rocks. They are less
prone to compaction under pressure and usually
become impermeable only because the cementing
minerals fall out of solution (colmatation). In oil geol
ogy, these formations are generally known as reservoir
rocks.
When descending movements develop in sedimen
tary basins, plastic rocks are defluidized; they lose pore
and crystallization waters, liquid and gaseous hydro
carbons, as well as components that are soluble in
water and hydrocarbons.
At increased geostatic pressure and temperature,
these sedimentary formations become donors–suppli
ers of gaseous–aqueous fluids to their external envi
ronment.
The hard rocks are reservoir rocks, such as the
zones of tectonic fracturing and faults that break the
continuity of the sedimentary shell; they usually act as
recipients, and become the main routes for fluid
movement and the channels of their discharge.
Many hydrogeologists, viz., A.A. Kartsev,
S.G. Vagin, E.A. Baskov, V.M. Nikanorov, A.V. Kudel’skii,
L.A. Nazarkin, and others believe that ultrahigh pore
pressure (UHPP) is the most important force of eli
sion systems. It generally occurs during the defluidiza
tion of plastic rocks under conditions of closed physi
cochemical systems; the phase transformations of the
composite parts of the plastic rocks that occur accord
ing to the solid–fluid–gaseous scheme in the com
pacted sealed segments of the sections contribute to an
No. 4 2015
352 KHOLODOV
intense increase in the local pore pressures and even
tually cause the migration of gases and solutions from
the most deeply subsided areas of the elision basins
towards their periphery and the day surface.
UHPP causes the migration of waters, salt brines,
and petroleum hydrocarbons in sedimentary strata
and the formation of reverse hydrochemical zonality
in the sedimentary rock basins, which emphasizes the
movement of fluids from the depth to the earth’s sur
face and from the basin center to its periphery. The dif
ferent structural and hydrogeological stages of sedi
mentaryrock basins are associated with each other by
the zones of increased fracturing, faults, and reser
voirs; this common hydrodynamic system has been
steadily operating throughout the stages of the
regional geological development.
In general, elision systems correspond to regions of
intense tectonic descending movements and accumu
lation of thick sedimentary strata. The regions of the
world’s largest oilandgas provinces, coalbearing
and halogenic basins, as well as the regions of the
development of salt tectonics (diapirs) and mud volca
noes, are spatially coincident with these systems.
The basins that are associated with thick clayey and
clayey–organogenic strata, saltbearing and evapor
itic, as well as coalbearing formations, are stratified
among the elision systems with respect to the domi
nant type of fluidgenerating deposits; it is easy to
assume that the clusters of each type of plastic rocks
feature their own modifications of elision processes
(Sokolov and Kholodov, 1994).
The elision processes that are related to the trans
formations of thick clayey strata that are composed of
smectite, hydromica and a caolinite–chloritic com
ponent without a considerable admixture of terrige
neous interlayers are most studied; these strata usually
consist of a certain amount of dispersed organic matter
(DOM), as well as inclusions of carbonates and other
authigenous admixtures.
As we showed earlier based on the example of sec
tions in the western PreKuban region and the eastern
PreCaucasian region (Kholodov, 1983), when
descending movement develops, clays become com
pacted, transform their mineral composition and are
dehydrated; the liberated water creates UHPP, which
is the main moving force for elision displacement of
fluids.
In its turn, the DOM, which originally consisted of
planctonogenic fats, proteins, and hydrocarbons at the
stage of diagenesis, generates fulvic and humic acids,
and produces kerogen and its fluid and gaseous deriv
atives, such as hydrocarbons of a petroleum series,
under catagenic immersion in the region of high tem
perature and pressure. The phase transitions of the
DOM produced oil and hydrocarbon gases and inten
sified the UHPP that was created by water.
MOSCOW UNIVERSITY GEOLOGY BULLETIN
Especially intense transformations of DOM were
likely to occur during the main phase of oilandgas
formation and the main phase of gas formation.
The ultrahigh pore pressure left its imprint on the
interior of the sedimentary rock basins: hydraulic frac
tures formed as plastic dykes, “horizons with inclu
sions,” and as mud volcanoes and salt diaper uplifts in
the zones of increased fracturing and tectonic faults.
CONCLUSIONS
In general, all these processes, which are very
important to lithologists and geologists–tectonists,
have been little studied: in light of recent works it has
become evident that the physicochemical properties
of sedimentary deposits are in marked contrast at great
depth and at the day surface and that the features of
deep stratispheric segments are determined by sponta
neously occurring phenomena of fluid genesis and
fluid dynamics.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the Russian Founda
tion for Basic Research (grant no. 120500246).
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Translated by L. Mukhortova
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