Tectonic Setting and Provenance of Sedimentary Rocks

A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X). This special issue belongs to the section "Mineral Geochemistry and Geochronology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2025 | Viewed by 468

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Guest Editor
Estación Regional del Noroeste, Instituto de Geología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico
Interests: sedimentary geochemistry; clay mineralogy; stable isotopes; U-Pb geochronology; oceanic anoxic enviroments (OAEs); paleogeography; paleoceanography; provenance and paleoclimatic studies

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Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City, Mexico
Interests: mineralogy; sedimentology; marine sediments; geochemistry; mineral chemistry; tectonics; surface features; and granulometry
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Clastic sedimentary rocks are produced through the physical disintegration of pre-excisting rocks during weathering and mechanical erosion. Clastic sedimentary rocks are significant because they are considerably useful for understanding Earth's evolution, paleogeography, and depositional environments. Clastic rocks mainly contain silicate minerals like quartz but also contain non-silicate minerals, including carbonates, sulfates, sulfides, oxides, and halides. Metalliferous deposits hosted by sedimentary rocks are typically associated with rift-related thick basinal volcano-sedimentary or sedimentary sequences.

Various methods are utilized to understand the sequence stratigraphy, biostratigraphy, paleoclimate, source rock characteristics, tectonic setting, and depositional environment of a sedimentary basin. In particular, petrography, geochemistry, and geochronology play a vital role in inferring the source rock characteristics and tectonic settings of sedimentary basins.

The geochemical composition of sedimentary rocks is widely used as a proxy to portray the nature of source rocks, as well as the tectonic setting and evolution of continental crust. Furthermore, the composition of sedimentary rocks enables us to better understand the processes that produce economic concentrations of minerals, whether formed via hydrothermal, magmatic, or metamorphic processes, or even a combination of these processes. Geochemical studies significantly contribute to mineral exploration programs at the regional reconnaissance scale.

In addition, chemostratigraphic techniques that utilize geochemical variations for stratigraphic correlation allow for better discrimination of rock species. In previous studies the utilization of chemostratigraphic concepts to understand the provenance signatures  of clastic sediments are not often used. This Special Issue will bring together new studies focusing on chemostratigraphy to correlate sedimentary sequences at the regional scale.

The purpose of this special issue on “Tectonic Setting and Provenance of Sedimentary Rocks” therefore is to better understand basin architecture and the depositional environment of sedimentary basins based on the geochemical and mineralogical composition of clastic sedimentary rocks.

This Special Issue addresses the following themes:

  1. Application of geochemistry in minerals and sedimentary ore deposits.
  2. Composition of sedimentary rocks, provenance, and tectonic setting.
  3. Geochemistry and geochronology of sedimentary rocks.
  4. Cheomostratigraphy and chronostratigraphy.
  5. Paleoweathering and paleoclimate.
  6. Usefulness of geochemistry in understanding depositional environments.
  7. Petrography and mineralogy of sedimentary rocks.

Dr. Jayagopal Madhavaraju
Dr. John S. Armstrong-Altrin
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • tectonic setting
  • provenance
  • chemostratigraphy
  • geochemistry
  • geochronology
  • sedimentary rocks

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 10464 KB  
Article
Callovian-Oxfordian Ironstones at the Northwestern Margin of the Neo-Tethys Ocean, with Mineralogically Diverse Iron Ooids: Example from Kutch Basin, India
by Arpita Chakraborty, Santanu Banerjee, Suraj Arjun Bhosale and Sabyasachi Mandal
Minerals 2025, 15(9), 990; https://doi.org/10.3390/min15090990 - 18 Sep 2025
Viewed by 204
Abstract
Multiple ironstone beds formed during the Callovian-Oxfordian times as a consequence of intense continental weathering, upwelling, and hydrothermal activity. This study examines the compositional differences between core and rim, and the origin of iron ooids along the northwestern margin of the Neo-Tethys Ocean [...] Read more.
Multiple ironstone beds formed during the Callovian-Oxfordian times as a consequence of intense continental weathering, upwelling, and hydrothermal activity. This study examines the compositional differences between core and rim, and the origin of iron ooids along the northwestern margin of the Neo-Tethys Ocean to highlight sea-level fluctuations, redox conditions, and elemental influx. An integrated sedimentological study, including petrography, mineralogy, micro-texture, and mineral chemistry, was carried out to explain the origin and implications of ironstones. The ~14 m thick Callovian-Oxfordian, marginal marine deposits in the Kutch Basin, in western India, exhibit iron ooids, predominantly formed in oolitic shoals during transgression, associated with lagoonal siliciclastics. Callovian shoals interbedded with lagoonal facies record minor sea-level fluctuations, whereas the Oxfordian deposit records a major transgression and condensation, resulting in extensive ironstone deposits. The ooid cortices and nuclei exhibit distinctive mineralogy and micro-textures: glauconitic smectite exhibits poorly-developed rosettes, chamosite displays flower-like, and goethite shows rod-like features. Three types of ooids are formed: (i) monomineralic ooids are entirely of chamosite or goethite, (ii) quartz-nucleated ooids, and (iii) composite ooids with either chamosite core and goethite rim, or chamosite core and glauconitic smectite rim. The assemblages within iron ooids reflect variation in depositional redox conditions: glauconitic smectite develops under suboxic lagoonal flank, chamosite forms in anoxic central lagoon, and goethite precipitates on oxic shoals. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Tectonic Setting and Provenance of Sedimentary Rocks)
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