Carbonate deposition during the late Proterozoic Era: an example from Spitsbergen

Carbonate sediments reflect the physico-chemical and biological circumstances of their formation; thus, features of limestones and dolomites may provide insights into both environmental and evolutionary change through geological time. The Upper Proterozoic (approx 800-700 Ma) Akademikerbreen Group, Spitsbergen, comprises 2000 m of carbonates, with only minor intercalations of quartz arenite and shale. Although Proterozoic carbonates are often seen as predominantly dolomitic, the Akademikerbreen Group is about 45 percent limestone. Stromatolites are conspicuous in outcrop but constitute only 25 percent of the total section. Micrites and coarser intraclastic carbonates derived mainly from micritric precursors comprise 60 percent of the group, while oolites make up the remaining 15 percent. Distinctive sedimentary features of the group include giant (up to 16 mm) ooids, very early diagenetic calcite nodules and cements, micrites containing subaqueous shrinkage cracks filled with equant microspar cement, and strong 13C enrichment in both carbonates and co-occurring organic matter. The principal features of Akademikerbreen carbonates are widely distributed in coeval successions. However, these rocks appear to differ from older limestones and dolomites in their relative abundance of grainstones and, perhaps, micrites, as well as their paucity of tufa-like laminates and columnar or coniform stromatolites that preserve petrographic evidence of in situ precipitation as a dominant means of carbonate accretion. Upper Proterozoic carbonates also differ from Paleozoic accumulations, but the transition is not abrupt. Most changes accompanying the Proterozoic/Phanerozoic transition can be interpreted in terms of the consequences rather than the causes of metazoan and metaphyte evolution, including the evolution of biomineralization. Carbonate sedimentology reinforces data from other sources which indicate the last 200 to 300 Ma of the Proterozoic Eon was a distinctive interval of Earth history.