Direct Geolocal Records of Ancient Environments in the Evaporite Basin: Evidences from Fluid Inclusions in Halite
MENG Fan-wei1, ZHANG Zhi-li2, ZHUO Qin-gong3,4, NI Pei5
1. State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology and Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China;
2. Petroleum Exploration and Development Research Institute, SINOPEC, Beijing 100083, China;
3. Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, CNPC, Beijing 100083, China;
4. PetroChina Key Laboratory of Basin Structure and Hydrocarbon Accummulation, Beijing 100083, China;
5. School of Earth Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 201193, China
Abstract：Evaporite is a treasure chest for reserving the information of ancient environments. Halite is the most widely distributed evaporitic mineral in the completely dried evaporitic basin. Halite has good closure and will be consolidated to halite rock with poreless and incompressible features in a shallow buried state. Fluid inclusions in halite, gypsum and glauberite, and mirabilite contain fluids (liquid or/and gases) which were captured during their crystalizations in the evaporation process of ancient marine lagoon or continental salt lake. Therefore, primary fluid inclusions in halite can record informations of temperature, chemical composition of the ocean, salt lake, and composition of the atmosphere in geological times directly, and can provide excellent direct records of paleoenvironments. Homogenization temperatures of primary fluid inclusions in halite can represent the brine temperature during halite crystalization. In shallow brine, the highest homogenization temperatures of fluid inclusions in halite can approximately represent the air temperature. The compositions of brines in primary fluid inclusions in halite can respectively represent those of seawater/salt lake water during evaporation process, and then can be used to infer the composition of seawater/salt lake water at that time. The halite funnel crystals, which were formed and floated in the top part of the brine, can capture ancient atmosphere as gas bubbles in primary fluid inclusions of the halite, indicating that primary fluid inclusions in halite can preserve original information of the paleo-atmesphere. Therefore, primary fluid inclusions in halite can provide accurate, direct and quantitive geological records that are not available by other traditional geochemical means, and will become the focus of paleoenvironmental studies in the future.
孟凡巍, 张智礼, 卓勤功, 倪培. 蒸发岩盆地古环境的直接记录:来自石盐流体包裹体的证据[J]. 矿物岩石地球化学通报, 2018, 37(3): 451-460.
MENG Fan-wei, ZHANG Zhi-li, ZHUO Qin-gong, NI Pei. Direct Geolocal Records of Ancient Environments in the Evaporite Basin: Evidences from Fluid Inclusions in Halite. Acta Metallurgica Sinica, 2018, 37(3): 451-460.
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