Microbial carbonate rocks: composition, structures, textures, mechanisms and environments of formation. Microbiolite formation processes and environments. Article 2

Introduction. Until relatively recently, all carbonate rocks have been divided into organogenic and chemogenic rocks. The former group includes those half-composed of skeletal remains, thus representing a biological problem. The group of chemogenic carbonate rocks initially included all carbonate rocks with a crystalline structure. Later, the “chemogenicity” of formation was attributed only to pelitomorphic and microgranular varieties, while pure crystalline structures were recognised as the result of secondary recrystallization.
However, the purely chemical precipitation of carbonate material from ocean waters by exceeding the solubility limit appears to be impossible. It occurs either biogenously during the formation of carbonate skeletons or biochemically as a result of changes in the acidity or alkalinity of the medium. The latter is typically implemented due to a carbonate disequilibrium between, on the one hand, the dissolved bicarbonates of calcium and magnesium and, on the other, water-dissolved carbon dioxide. The removal of the latter by photosynthetic organisms disturbs the dynamic balance and leads to an increased alkalinity and precipitation of carbonates, firstly calcium and then magnesium ones at higher pH values. Along with plants, microbial communities perform a similar function.
Aim. The paper presents the results of generalization and systematization of accumulated research data on the abovementioned forms.
Materials and methods. In addition to literature materials, carbonate rocks of various ages — from the Vendian and Lower Cambrian of the Siberian platform to the Crimea Neogene and sediments of contemporary oceans — were examined using macro- and microscopic (mainly) methods of studying and describing specific objects.
Results. Сoccoid, tubular and fibrous formations, i.e. particular bacterial “skeletons”, represent one precipitation form. At the same time, bacterial communities produce glycocalyx, representing an extracellular polymer substance, which forms a basis for submicroscopic precipitates of carbonate minerals. In this case, specific sheet- and plate-like carbonate material precipitates can be formed. The environments for implementing such mechanisms are highly diverse. Microbiolites can be formed in water bodies, including from fresh to substantially and even abnormally saline waters, in suspended matter and at the bottom of basins, both at the stage of sedimentation and during further diagenetic processes. The most famous example of the latter are various nodules.
Conclusions. The processes of sediment formation and material deposition are somewhat different. The formation of a solid phase is determined by the biochemical activity of microbiota and, first of all, the creation of geochemical conditions that contribute to the appearance of a solid carbonate material. However, the fixation of this material in a sediment is implemented either in “skeletal” ball-shaped (coccolites) and tubular (tubiphytes) forms, or by precipitation as a result of absorption on glycocalyx, or by the formation of various — both isolated individual (thrombolite microclusters, oolites and oncolites) and laminar (stromatolites) — forms.

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