Source: http://www.saltworkconsultants.com/blog/tag/MVT_deposit/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 00:15:08+00:00

Document:
Salt, Oil, Gas & Metals: What Drives the Link?
This article is based on a review written for CSPG Reservoirs and presented orally at the AAPG 2016 meeting in Calgary. It endeavours to give an up-to-date synopsis of how and why ancient salty basins tend to contain elevated levels of oil, gas and metals. It begins with an overview of hydrologies, then places ancient salt bodies in their climatic and tectonic context, and lastly looks at industrial associations and predictors. For brevity, details of many regions, deposits and references are summarised as tables, more complete discussion and referencing can be found in appropriate sections in Warren (2016), or feel free to contact me (jkwarren@saltworkconsultants.com or via www.saltworkconsultants.com) with requests for more comprehensive documentation of particular examples.
If we accept the definition of an evaporite as “A salt rock originally precipitated from a saturated surface or near-surface brine in hydrologies driven by solar evaporation,” then the greater volume of saline mineral salts in the earth’s sedimentary realm are the product of solar heating of brine. There are other sets of mineral salts in the depositional and diagenetic realm with the same mineral composition as evaporite salts, but these salts result from cryogenic, hydrothermal or burial re-equilibration processes (Warren, 2016). For a water molecule to escape into the vapour phase in an evaporitic setting, and so increase the salinity of an enduring brine body or pore water in the capillary zone of a sabkha, the water molecule must; 1) absorb heat energy, 2) be located near the liquid surface, 3) be moving in the proper direction, 4) have sufficient energy to overcome liquid-phase intermolecular forces and, 5) pass through the surface tension inter-face (Figure 1).
Simple physics of molecular escape (rate and intensity) during solar evaporation essentially controls the potency of re-maining brine. Bed textures and mineralogies entomb evidence of concentration levels in the brine and its hydrological setting/stability (Figures 2, 3). This makes evaporites excellent gauges of climate present and past. In combination, relative brine density and specific heat capacity of adjacent brine masses control density and thermal stratification in saline brine bodies located at or near the earth’s surface (Figure 2). Subsequent burial alteration controls later textural evolution by interactions with regional shallow and deep phreatic crossflows (Warren, 2016).
Specific heat is the amount of heat needed to raise one gramme of a substance by 1 °C. For a given amount of heat input, a unit volume of hypersaline water will show a greater increase in temperature than a less salty water (Figure 2c). Given the same degree of insolation, this means density-stratified water bodies tend to be heliothermic, with the lower, denser bottom brine layer being warmer than the somewhat less saline, less dense, upper water layer (Figure 2a). The level in any water column where a marked change in temperature occurs is the thermocline, and in a density-stratified brine mass corresponds to the halocline, also termed a chemocline (Figure 3a). The combination of high temperature, high salinity and lower oxygen levels in the lower brine mass in a heliothermal brine system means only a specialised biota can survive there, often with specialised bacterial populations living in waters just above a saline thermocline. A modern example is the purple sulphur-oxidising community flourishing immediately above the halocline in Lake Mahoney, British Columbia. Fluctuating salinity and nutrient levels endemic to many evaporite depositing regions encourage preservation of elevated levels of organic matter in a variety of hypersaline settings past and present (“feast and famine” associations; Warren, 2011).
As any brine concentrates, its density increases (Figure 2b). The overlying water body must be holomictic for bottom-nucleated salts to accumulate across the subaqueous floor of a brine mass and for dense, saturated brine to sink (reflux) into underlying sediments (Figure 3a). Holomixis means a near homogenous distribution of brine density, temperature, and salinity throughout the brine mass, with internal mixing being ongoing and mostly maintained by wind movement. In contrast, a meromictic brine body is internally stratified, with a lower more-saline, denser, warmer water mass separated across a halocline from an upper, less saline, less-dense, cooler water mass. A longterm halocline hinders chemical or physical changes in the underlying denser waters, so shutting down bottom nucleation, as well as slowing and ultimately stopping brine reflux. A permanently stratified system is ectogenic, while a brine column that is temporarily stratified is endogenic.
Over decades, saline water masses can change from ectogenic to endogenic. In February 1979, salinity equalisation drove the mixing of upper and lower water masses in the Dead Sea, resulting in a holomictic water body. Since then, aside from short episodes of storm-flood-driven freshening of the upper water mass in 1980 and 1994 (meromixis), the Dead Sea has been holomictic, and halite has been accumulating on the deep lake floor (Gertman and Hecht, 2002). Before 1979, the Dead Sea had been a stratified system for at least 400 years and only pelagic carbonate laminites with minor gypsum, not halite, accumulated on the deep lake floor, beneath a 370-380 m deep brine column.
Holomixis permits deposition of a coherent salt layer across the whole basin floor, beneath both shallow and deep brine columns. Density stratification allows evaporitic salts to crystallise only in the upper water mass or at the upper brine - lower brine interface, so bottom nucleation tends to occur on the shallower lake floor, where it lies above the halocline (Figure 3a). That is, long-term (ectogenic) column stratification mean bottom nucleation of salts can only occur where the upper salt-saturated brine mass intersects the sediment bottom, with a pelagic settling of salts occurring deeper out in the depositional basin, as in the Dead Sea prior to February 1979 (Figure 3a). The bottom growth of crystals cannot occur on a deep bottom located beneath a density-stratified system, as there is no mechanism to drive ongoing supersaturation in the lower water mass. For the same reason, constant brine reflux driving sinking of a dense brine into sediments beneath the floor of the evaporite basin can only proceed if significant regions of the overlying brine mass are holomictic. Deposition of capillary salts (sabkha deposits) occurs in subaerial settings, wherever the saline capillary zone inter-sects the land surface (Figure 3b).
When salts are accumulating beneath a holomictic brine mass, textures in bottom nucleates is controlled by the stability of the overlying brine column (Figure 3b). When the overlying column is deep (>30-100m) then, other than areas on the deep bottom of local phreatic spring-fed outflows, there is no general hydrochemical mechanism to drive fluctuations in bottom-brine chemistry. The resulting deep bottom precipitates tend to be monomineralogic crystal clusters, possibly encased by re-transported material washed in from the shallower surrounds (Figure 3a, 3b). In contrast, when the overlying brine column is shallow (<30m and typically <5-10m) then the chemistry and stability of the brine varies on a shorter term (daily-weekly) basis, so more layered bi-mineralogic bottom-nucleates can accumulate as layered to laminated salt beds. In addition, all evaporite sediments can be reworked by bottom currents, with similar textures to those that characterise siliciclastic and mechanically-modified carbonate sediments (Figure 3b).
Uniformitarianism is an essential tenet of geological understanding. Yet, when we look at evaporite volumes and depositional settings across deep time, we see that the diversity of modern evaporite analogues is constrained by a deficit in two conditions, specifically; 1) the current lack of greenhouse eustasy; contemporaneous atmospheric conditions and sea levels are controlled by the earth’s current icehouse climate mode and have been for the last 10-12 million years, and 2) the current lack at the plate-edge scale of marine seepage into large hydrographically-isolated oceanic sump basins (Warren, 2010). Both situations circumscribe different hydrologies and eustasies compared to continental-fed in-flows that typify the world's current larger evaporite basins. Today, and across the Quaternary, the largest and thickest salt stacks, with areal extents up to 10,000 km2 and thickness up to 900 m, tend to precipitate in the lower parts of suprasealevel intermontane lacustrine sumps located in tectonically active parts of continental interiors, such as Salar Atacama and Salar di Uyuni in the Andean Altiplano (Figure 4a). Most ancient evaporites are marine-fed and were deposited in huge hydrographically-isolated subsealevel marine-seepage sumps located in intracratonic basins or within rifts or compressional sutures. Often, the areal extents of these ancient systems were more than 250,000 km2, this is more than two orders of magnitude larger than any Quaternary evaporite deposit. Bedded (pre-halokinetic) thicknesses could be more than a kilometre.
Ancient marine saline giants (megahalites and megasulphates) accrued in either of two plate-scale settings, which at times merged into one another, namely; 1) Platform evaporites (Figure 5) and 2) Basinwide evaporites (Figure 6). The first major contrast with nonmarine continental dominance in Quaternary evaporite settings is the fact that platform evaporites require greenhouse eustasy, the second is that basinwide evaporites require tectonically- and hydrographically-isolated widespread subsealevel depressions, typically found along plate edges with continent-continent proximity (Figure 5).
Neither condition is present on the current earth surface. For basinwides, suitable hydrologic conditions were last present during the Messinian Salinity Crisis in the Mediterranean region, and platform evaporite settings were last present on earth across large parts of the Middle East carbonate platform during the Eocene (Tables 1, 2). There is a third group of ancient evaporite deposits; it encompasses all nonmarine lacustrine beds past and present (Table 3). This group has same-scale modern-ancient counterparts, unlike ancient marine platform and basinwide evaporites (Figure 4a; Warren, 2010, 2016).
Are made up of stratiform beds, usually <50 m thick and composed of stacked <1 to 5 m thick parasequences or evaporite cycles, with a variably-present restricted-marine carbonate unit at a cycle base (Table 1). Salts were deposited as mixed evaporitic mudflat and saltern evaporites, sometimes with local accumulations of bittern salts. Typically, platform salts were deposited in laterally extensive (>50-100 km wide), hydrographically-isolated, subsealevel marine-seepage lagoons (salterns) or evaporitic mudflats (sabkhas and salinas). These regions had no same-scale modern coun-terparts and extended as widespread depositional sheets across large portions of hydrographically isolated marine platform areas, which passed seaward across a subaerial seepage barrier into open marine sediments (Figure 5). In marine margin epeiric settings, such as the Jurassic Arab/Hith and Permian Khuff cycles of the Middle East or the Cretaceous Ferry Lake Anhydrite in the Gulf of Mexico, these platform evaporites are intercalated with shoalwater marine-influenced carbonate shelf/ramp sediments, which in turn pass basinward across a subaerial sill into open marine carbonates. Landward they pass into arid zone continental siliciclastics or carbonate mudflats.
Platform evaporite deposition occurred in both pericontinental and epicontinental settings, at times of low-amplitude 4th and 5th order sealevel changes, which typify greenhouse eustasy (Figure 5; Warren, 2010). Platform evaporites also typify the saline stages of some intracratonic basins. Platform evaporites cannot form in the high-amplitude, high-frequency sealevel changes of icehouse eustasy. The 100m+ amplitude oscillations of icehouse times mean sealevel falls off the shelf edge every 100,000 years, so any evaporite that had formed on the platform is subaerially exposed and leached. Fourth order high-amplitude icehouse eustatic cycles also tend to prevent laterally-continuous carbonate sediment barriers forming at the top of the shelf to slope break and so icehouse evaporite systems tend not to be hydrographically isolated (drawdown) at the platform scale. Rather icehouse eustasy favours nonmarine evaporites as the dominant style, along with small ephemeral marine-margin salt bodies, as seen today in the bedded Holocene halites and gypsums of Lake Macleod in coastal West Australia.
Ancient platform evaporite successions may contain halite beds, especially in intracratonic basinwide settings, but periplatform settings, outside of intracratonic basins, are typically dominated by 5–40 m thick Ca-sulphate beds intercalated with normal-marine platform carbonates (Table 1). The lateral extent of these epeiric platform sulphate bodies, like the Middle Anhydrite Member of the Permian Khuff Fm. of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with a current area of more than 1,206,700 km2, constitute some of the most aerially-extensive evaporite beds ever deposited.
Are made up of thick evaporite units >50–100 m thick made up of varying combinations of deepwater and shallow wa-]ter evaporites (Table 2). They retain textural evidence of different but synchronous local depositional settings, including mudflat, saltern, slope and basin (Figures 6). When basinwide evaporite deposition occurs, the whole basin hydrology is evaporitic, holomictic, and typically saturated with the same mineral phase across vast areas of the basin floor, as in the Dead Sea basin today. The Dead Sea has a more limited lateral scale than ancient basinwides but currently has halite forming simultaneously as; 1) decimeter-thick chevron-dominated beds on the saline-pan floor of the shallow parts around the basin edge in waters typically less than 1-10 metres deep, and 2) as coarse inclusion-poor crystal meshworks of halite on the deep basin floor that sits below a halite-saturated brine column up to hundreds of metres deep (Figure 3a). Ancient basinwide successions are usually dominated by thick massive salt beds, generally more than 100-500 m thick. Deposits are made up of stacked thick halite beds, but can also contain substantial volumes of thick-bedded Ca-sulphate and evaporitic carbonate, as in the intracratonic basinwide accumulations of the Delaware and Otto Fiord Basins (Table 2).
Owing to inherent purity and thickness of the deposited halite, many halite-dominant basinwide beds are also remobilized, via loading or tectonics, into various halokinetic geometries (Hudec and Jackson, 2007). Some basinwide systems (mostly marine-fed intracratonic settings) entrain significant accumulations of marine-fed potash salts, as in the Devoni-an Prairie Evaporite of western Canada. In contrast, all Quaternary examples of commercial potash deposits are accumulating in continental lacustrine systems (Warren 2016; Chapter 11).
Basinwide evaporite deposits are the result of a combination of tectonic and hydrological circumstances that are not currently active on the world’s surface (Figure 4b). They were last active in the Late Miocene (Messinian), in association with soft-suture collision basins tied to the Alpine-Himalaya orogenic belt, and in Middle Miocene (Badenian) basins developed in the early rift stages of the Red Sea. Basinwide systems will be active again in the future at sites and times of appropriate plate-plate interaction, when two continental plate edges are nearby, and the intervening seafloor is in or near a plate-edge rift or suture and is both subsealevel and hydrographically isolated (Figure 6).
Quaternary continental playa/lacustrine are constructed of stratiform salt units, with the greater volume of saline sediment accumulating in lower, more-saline portions of the lacustrine landscape. Beds are usually dominated by nodular gypsum and displacive halite, deposited in extensive evaporitic mudflats and saltpans with textures heavily overprinted by capillary wicking, rather than as bedded bottom-nucleated layers on the subaqueous floors of perennial brine lakes (Figure 3b; Ruch et al., 2012). In ancient counterparts, the total saline lacustrine thickness ranged from meters to hundreds of meters, with lateral extents measured in tens to hundreds of kilometres (Table 3; Figure 4a). Lacustrine salt beds are separated vertically, and usually surrounded by, deposits of lacustrine muds, alluvial fans, ephemeral streams, sheet floods, eolian sands, and redbeds. As today, ancient lacustrine salts accumulated in endorheic or highly restricted discharge basins, with perennial saline water masses tending to occur in the drainage sumps of steep-sided drainage basins (Warren, 2010, 2016). Saline lake basins accumulating gypsum, or more saline salts like halite or glauberite, typically have a shallow water table in peripheral saline mudflat areas and so are dominated by continental sabkha textures. Nearby is the lowermost part of the lacustrine depression or sump where deposition is typified by ephemeral ponded brine pan deposits, rather than permanent saline waters.
Saline lacustrine mineralogies depend on compositions of inflowing waters, so depositional sumps in regions with non-marine ionic proportions in the feeder inflow, accumulate thick sequences of nonmarine bedded salts dominated by trona, glauberite, and thenardite. In contrast, nonmarine areas with thalassic (seawater-like) inflows tend to accumulate more typical sequences of halite, gypsum, and anhydrite.
Across the Quaternary, less-saline perennial saline-lake beds tend to occur during more humid climate periods in the same continental-lacustrine depressions where saline-pan beds form (e.g., Lake Magadi, Great Salt Lake, Lake Urmia). On a smaller scale, in some modern saline lake basins, parts of the lake floor can be permanently located below the water surface (Northern Basin in the Dead Sea or Lake Asal). In some modern saline sumps dominated by mudflats, a perennial saline lake water mass is located toward the edge of a more central salt-flat zone, forming a perennial water filled “moat” facies surrounding a seasonally desiccated saline pan (as in Salar, de Atacama, Salar de Uyuni, Lake Magadi, Lake Natron). These permanent to near-permanent saline water “moat” regions are typically created where fresher inflows encounter saltier beds of the lake centre, dissolve them, and so form water-filled peripheral depressions. Bottom sediment in the moats tend to be mesohaline carbonate laminites, which can contain TOC levels as high as 12%.
High-water stage perennial saline lacustrine sediments tend to be carbonate-rich or silica-rich (diatomaceous) laminites. Ancient examples of large saline lacustrine deposits made up of alternating humid and desiccated lacustrine units include the Eocene Green River Formation of Wyoming and the Permian Pingdiquan Formation of the Junggar Basin, Chi-na (Table 4). Evaporites deposited in a suprasealevel lacustrine basin (especially Neogene deposits) have numerous same-scale Quaternary analogues, unlike the more voluminous ancient marine platform and basinwide evaporites (Figure 4a).
All the world’s supergiant oil and gas fields in thrusts (seals and structural traps).
50% of world’s giant SedEx deposits (halokinetic brine focus).
World’s largest Phanerozoic Ni deposit (meta-igneous – Noril’sk).
Many larger IOCG deposits (meta-evaporite, brine and hydrothermal).
This enrichment runs counter to a proportion of 2% of the world's Phanerozoic sediments. The exact why or how of these associations is still not well understood. Most geologists working with oil, gas or metal buildups in a salt-rich basin will come to have a suspicion, and for some, the conviction, that salt or its subsurface alteration plays a role in defining the position or enrichment level of the commodity of interest. Evaporite masses in the subsurface, especially if halite-dominant, enable both physical and chemical alterations, which tend to improve economic prospectivity. The unique properties of salt in the diagenetic realm tend to facilitate, focus and stabilise processes that lead to elevated levels of accumulations of various commodities (Figure 8). That is, evaporites in a basin tend to enhance the volume of oil, gas or metals in an accumulation, but are not necessarily the direct cause of the accumulation/precipitation.
When the reservoired hydrocarbon below a salt seal is oil, little or no leakage can take place through a laterally continuous evaporite. Even when the reservoired hydrocarbon is methane, little or no loss occurs, even by diffusion (Ehgartner et al., 1998). The much greater efficiency of evaporite seals, compared to shales, is clearly seen in the total hydrocarbon volumes held back by the two lithologies. Total worldwide shale sediment volume in the Earth's sedimentary crust is more that an order of magnitude greater than that of evaporites, yet the split between reservoired hydrocarbons below a shale or an evaporite seal is roughly 50:50 (Grunau, 1987). Likewise, typical volumes of salt-sealed giant fields dis-covered in the last decade are much grander than that held in mudrock-sealed systems (Bai and Yu, 2014).
Of the 120 giant oil and gas fields discovered in the period 2000 - 2012 some 54.6 % are hosted in marine carbonates and 12% in lacustrine carbonates, meaning less than a third of new giant discoveries are in siliciclastic reservoirs (Figure 9a). Some 56% of these oil and gas giants have an evaporite seal, with 82% of the marine carbonates having an evaporite seal and 91% of the lacustrine carbonates having an evaporite seal (Figure 9b, c). Clearly, carbonate reservoirs with evaporite seals constitute most of the giant oil and gas discoveries across the period 2000-2012, and the proportions of this association are likely to increase in conventional discoveries across the next decades (Bai and Yu, 2014).
Of these 120 oil and gas giants, one is a megagiant field with a recoverable reserve of 50 Bboe (Billion barrels oil equivalent) or more, and 6 are supergiant fields with recoverable reserves of 5 Bboe or more. The seven largest fields are: Galkynysh (aka Yolotan or Osman) gas field in the Ama-Darya Basin of Turkmenistan with an original 2P reserve of 67.1 Bboe, making it likely the second largest known gas field in the world; Kashagan oil field (18.1 Bboe) in the North Caspian basin; Kish 2 gas field in the Arabian Basin (Iran): Lula (previously known as Tupi), Franco and Libra oil fields in the Santos Basin of offshore Brazil; and Sulige gas field (5.7 Bboe) in the Ordos Basin, China. In this listing, the geology of Galkynysh is not yet reliably published, but of the remaining 6, only Sulige does not have an evaporite association.
Typical bedded evaporite seals, especially beds composed of monomineralogic assemblages such as massive nodular anhydrite or massive halite and have measured entry pressures more than 3000 psi. Most impure evaporite beds have entry pressures greater than 1000 psi, as do many evaporite-plugged reflux dolomites. Contrast this with most shales, which tend to be water-bearing (mostly bound and structural water), with typical entry pressures between 900 and 1500 psi (Sneider et al., 1997). Although such shales are respectable seals, over time shale allows substantial diffu-sive leakage of methane and even liquid hydrocarbons via inherent microporosity, less so if the shales are organic-rich. Even ignoring halite's ability to reanneal and flow under stress, any evaporite seal has much lower intrinsic permeability than shale, and this helps maintain its seal integrity. With permeabilities of 10-7 md, a hydraulic gradient of 0.01, and a porosity less than 0.01, a brine would take somewhere between 3 and 30 million years to flow 1 metre into an unfractured halite seal. For anhydrite, which has permeability some 100 times higher than halite, a brine would take between 30,000 and 300,000 years to flow 1 metre into the seal (Beauheim and Roberts, 2002).
Evaporites are excellent longterm seals to substantial hydrocarbon columns. This applies to any siliciclastic or carbonate reservoir adjacent to bedded or halokinetic salty seals (Figure 10). The exemplary ability of bedded evaporites to act as seals holding back massive hydrocarbon columns is clearly seen in the Middle East, where Ghawar, the world’s largest oil field, is sealed by bedded anhydrites of the Jurassic Arab D Formation and the overlying Hith Anhydrite seal. This evaporite seal association in Ghawar holds back an estimated remaining reserve of more than 100-200 billion barrels. Bedded platform anhydrites also seal Safaniya, the world’s largest offshore field, also in Saudi Arabia, with estimated reserves of more than 25-30 billion barrels of oil and 5 billion cubic feet of natural gas. Likewise, Permian platform anhydrites are the regional seal to North Field in offshore Qatar, the world’s largest single gas field (non-associated gas) with more than 500 tcf of reserves (Alsharhan and Nairn, 1997). This gas is reservoired and sealed in the evaporitic dolomites of the Permian Khuff Formation and recent announcements by the Qatari Government have postulated more than 900 tcf of certified non-associated gas sealed in the North Field structure.
In terms of physical processes, buried near-pure halite beds and masses (rock salt) in the sedimentary realm are rheologically unusual compared to other nearby sediments, in that at geological time scales rock salt can set up deformation responses that mimic Newtonian fluid responses. At the same time, intercrystalline textures in the flowing salt mass maintain seal integrity, even as local crystals dissolve and reprecipitate. That is, down to depths of 6-8 km rock salt flows and maintains seal integrity, while adjacent non-salt sediments tend to fault and fracture. The ability of bedded salt to seal (Figure 10a) and of flowing salt to create and seal supra-, intra- and sub-salt reservoirs is well documented (Figure 10b).
Dense evaporitic brines can pass through adjacent or underlying sediments both at the time the bedded salts are accumulating, or later as a subsurface salt mass dissolves. For example, chemical responses, created within the set-up hydrology of widespread salt deposition and early burial, drive brine reflux, moving magnesium-rich modified seawater brines into and through the underlying carbonate sediments. This hydrology crafts broad reflux dolomite haloes, with local burial anhydrite patches and overall improves intercrystalline connectivity, at least until the dolomite reservoir becomes overdolomitised (Figure 11). Once this happens, all effective polyhedral porosity is lost in the dolomite and the reservoir potential is destroyed. Later dissolution brines can create hydrothermal waters capable of leaching and burial dolomitization, as in the burial-dolomite reservoirs of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (Davies and Smith, 2006).
As long ago as the middle of last century, Weeks (1961) emphasised the importance of evaporites as seals to many of the world's major hydrocarbon accumulations. He also pointed out that many of the cycles of deposition that involve organic-rich carbonate marls or muds also end with evaporites. Clearly, in evaporitic settings, there is an association with Type I-II hydrogen-prone kerogens in mesohaline source rocks, and this is related to the ability of halotolerant photosynthetic algae and cyanobacteria to flourish in periodically mesohaline waters. Such kerogens tend to be oil-prone rather than gas prone and typified by long-chain hydrocarbons (Warren, 2011).
Much of the mesohaline organic matter preserved in evaporitic carbonates, and the resulting source rocks, originated as planktonic blooms (pelagic “rain from heaven”) or from the benthic biomass (“in situ” accumulations). Such organics typically settled out as seriate pulses of organic matter (often pelleted and laminated) that sank to the bottom of a layered brine column. Each pulse was tied to a short period when surface brines were diluted and halotolerant producers (mostly cyanobacteria and algae) flourished in the freshened lit zone. That is, laminated mesohaline mudstones that constitute most evaporitic source rocks reflect biological responses to conditions of “feast or famine” in vacillatingly-layered brine bodies (Figure 12; Warren, 1986, 2011).
Worldwide, studies of schizohaline evaporitic basins have shown that organic-rich mesohaline sediments can accumulate beneath ephemeral surface brines in salterns, or in basin and slope settings in both marine and continental settings (Figure 12; Kirkland and Evans, 1981; Oehler, 1984; Warren, 1986, 2011; Rouchy, 1988; Busson, 1992). The most prolific accumulations of organics in ancient evaporitic settings tend to be laminated micritic carbonates deposited be-neath intermittently stratified moderately-saline (mesohaline) anoxic water columns of varying brine depth.
1) Basin-centre lows in marine-fed evaporitic drawdown basins (basinwide salts).
2) Mesohaline intrashelf lows atop epeiric evaporitic platforms.
3) Saline-bottomed lows in perennial underfilled saline lacustrine basins.
4) Closed seafloor depressions in halokinetic deepwater marine slope and rise terrains.
In addition to the evaporite hydrocarbon association, there is an association of evaporite settings with the larger of the known MVT, Sedex, Stratiform Sedimentary Copper and some IOCG associations (Figure 13; see Warren 2016, Chapter 15 and 16 for detailed case histories and models). The role of evaporites in focusing metalliferous ore accumulations is two-fold; 1) In solution (halite-dominant precursor) they can act as chloride-rich metal carriers and 2) Locally, as beds or masses (especially of CaSO4), their dissolution products, especially if trapped, can supply sulphur (mostly as bacteriogenic or thermogenic H2S) and also set up chemical interfaces that act as foci in the setup of brine mixing conditions suitable for precipitation of metal sulphides or native elements. Hence, most evaporite-associated ore systems tend to be epigenetic, rather than syngenetic. Subsurface salt beds and masses are merely the solid part of a large ionic recycling system; dissolved metals are another part, and zones of mixing between the two are typically sites where ores tend to accumulate. Halokinesis steadies the position of a redox interface, tied to a salt dissolution brine halo, and enables an extended phase of focus to a metal precipitative (redox) interface at a stable location in subsurface earth-space (Warren, 2016).
At the world-scale, evaporite-associated metalliferous systems are driven by plate tectonics. Halite-dominated sequences, deposited in the drawdown basin centres, tend to dissolve in burial, and so supply chloride ions to the brine system. Salt beds that are thick enough tend to flow and so focus the upward, and centripetal passage of basinal and hydrothermal fluid flows. Dissolving gypsum or anhydrite beds, typically deposited higher on the basin platform or diagenetically accumulated along salt dissolution edges and touchdowns can supply sulphur, via bacterial or thermochemical sulphate reduction, while simultaneously focusing metalliferous brine flows into the precipitation interface.
When the chemistries of the dissolving salt beds and the metal carriers interact so that redox fronts, salinity contrasts, and other precipitative interfaces are set up, an ore deposit can form. Thus, in base and precious metal exploration within evaporitic terranes, we are ultimately searching for those parts of a subsurface ionic cycling system where the salt dissolution, salt beds and metal systems have interacted to create economic levels of metalliferous precipitates.
3) Mesohaline source rock distribution is related to evaporite basin architecture and likely fluid escape pathways, which in turn are related to seal type and timing of salt dissolution or halokinetic withdrawal.
4) Potash ore quality controls are related to the timing of various brine crossflows generated during deposition, mesogenesis and telogenesis.
5) Positions of likely base metal and copper accumulations relate to set-ups of dissolution-related of redox interfaces, mesogenetic cross-flows, and in some cases, halokinetic geometries. At the plate tectonic scale, these accumulations occur at particular hydrological interfaces within the basin architecture.
Alsharhan, A. S., and A. E. M. Nairn, 1997, Sedimentary Basins and Petroleum Geology of the Middle East: Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Elsevier Science B. V., 942 p.
Bai, G., and Y. Xu, 2014, Giant fields retain dominance in reserves growth: Oil & Gas Journal, v. 112, p. 44-.
Busson, G., and et al., 1992, Basins paleogenes saliferes de l'Est de la France (Valence, Bresse et Haute-Alsace) Translated Title: Paleogene salt basins of eastern France, Valence, Bresse and Haute-Alsace: Geologie de la France, v. 1, p. 15-64.
Davies, G. R., and L. B. Smith, 2006, Structurally controlled hydrothermal dolomite reservoir facies: An overview: Bulle-tin American Association Petroleum Geologists, v. 90, p. 1641-1690.
Ehgartner, B. L., J. T. Neal, and T. E. Hinkebein, 1998, Gas Releases from Salt: SAND98-1354, Sandia National Laborato-ries, Albuquerque, NM, June 1998.
Gertman, I., and A. Hecht, 2002, The Dead Sea hydrography from 1992 to 2000: Journal of Marine Systems, v. 35, p. 169-181.
Grunau, H. R., 1987, A worldwide look at the cap-rock problem: Journal of Petroleum Geology, v. 10, p. 245-266.
Hay, W. W., A. Migdisov, A. N. Balukhovsky, C. N. Wold, S. Flogel, and E. Soding, 2006, Evaporites and the salinity of the ocean during the Phanerozoic: Implications for climate, ocean circulation and life: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, v. 240, p. 3-46.
Jiang, L., C. F. Cai, R. H. Worden, K. K. Li, and L. Xiang, 2013, Reflux dolomitization of the Upper Permian Changxing Formation and the Lower Triassic Feixianguan Formation, NE Sichuan Basin, China: Geofluids, v. 13, p. 232-245.
Kirkland, D. W., and R. Evans, 1981, Source-rock potential of an evaporitic environment: Bulletin American Association of Petroleum Geologists, v. 65, p. 181-190.
Oehler, J. H., 1984, Carbonate source rocks in the Jurassic Smackover trend of Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, in J. G. Palacas, ed., Petroleum geochemistry and source rock potential of carbonate rocks, v. 18: Tulsa, Oklahoma, American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Studies in Geology, p. 63-69.
Pilcher, R. S., B. Kilsdonk, and J. Trude, 2011, Primary basins and their boundaries in the deep-water northern Gulf of Mexico: Origin, trap types, and petroleum system implications: Bulletin American Association Petroleum Geologists, v. 95, p. 219-240.
Ronov, A. B., V. E. Khain, A. N. Balukhovsky, and K. B. Seslavinsky, 1980, Quantitative analysis of Phanerozoic sedimen-tation: Sedimentary Geology, v. 25, p. 311-325.
Rouchy, J. M., 1988, Relations évaporites-hydrocarbures:l'association laminites-récifes-évaporites dans le Messinien de Mediterranée et ses enseignements, in G. Busson, ed., Evaporites et hydrocarbures, v. 55, Mémoires du Muséum na-tional d'Historie naturelle, (C), p. 15-18.
Ruch, J., J. K. Warren, F. Risacher, T. R. Walter, and R. Lanari, 2012, Salt lake deformation detected from space: Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v. 331-332, p. 120-127.
Sneider, R. M., J. S. Sneider, G. W. Bolger, and J. W. Neasham, 1997, Comparison of Seal Capacity Determinations: Con-ventional Cores vs. Cuttings, in R. C. Surdam, ed., AAPG Memoir 67: Seals, Traps, and the Petroleum System.
Warren, J. K., 1986, Shallow water evaporitic environments and their source rock potential: Journal Sedimentary Pe-trology, v. 56, p. 442-454.
Warren, J. K., 2010, Evaporites through time: Tectonic, climatic and eustatic controls in marine and nonmarine depos-its: Earth-Science Reviews, v. 98, p. 217-268.
Warren, J. K., 2016, Evaporites: A Compendium (ISBN 978-3-319-13511-3) Berlin, Springer, 1854 p.
Weeks, L. G., 1961, Chapter 5, Origin, migration and occurrence of petroleum, in G. B. Moody, ed., Petroleum Explora-tion Handbook: New York, McGraw-Hill.
Red Sea metals: what is the role of salt in metal enrichment?
In this article, I focus on one such hypersaline-brine deposit, the cupriferous hydrothermal laminites of the Atlantis II Deep in the Red Sea and look at the role of evaporites in the enrichment of metals in this deposit. It is a modern example of a metalliferous laminite forming in a brine lake sump on the deep seafloor where the brine lake and the stabilisation of the precipitation interface is a result of the dissolution of adjacent halokinetic salt masses. Most economic geologists classify the metalliferous Red Sea deeps as SedEx deposits, but the low levels of lead and high levels of copper, along with its stratigraphic position atop seafloor basalts, place it outside the usual Pb-Zn dominant system that typifies ancient SedEx deposits. Some economic geologists use the Red Sea deeps as analogues for volcanic massive sulphides, and some argue it even illustrates aspects of some stratiform Cu accumulations. Many such economic geology studies have the propensity to ignore the elephant in the room; that is the Red Sea deeps are the result of brine focusing by a large Tertiary-age halokinetically-plumbed seafloor brine association. This helps explain the large volume of metals compared to Cyprus-style and mid-ocean ridge volcanic massive sulphides (Warren 2016, Chapters 15 and16).
In my mind what is most important about the brine lakes on the deep seafloor of the Red Sea is the fact that they exist with such large lateral extents only because of dissolution of the hosting halokinetic slope and rise salt mass. Seismic surveys conducted in the past decade in the Red Sea show extensive salt flows (submarine salt glaciers) along the whole of the Red Sea Rift (at least from 19–23°N; Augustin et al., 2014; Feldens and Mitchell, 2015)). In places, these salt sheets flow into and completely blanket the axial region of the rift. Where not covered by namakiers, the seafloor comprises volcanic terrain characteristic of a mid-ocean spreading axis. In the salt-covered areas, evidence from bathymetry, volume-balance of the salt flows, and geophysical data all seems to support the conclusion that the sub-salt basement is mostly basaltic in nature and represents oceanic crust (Augustin et al., 2014).
The Red Sea, located between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, represents a young active rift system that from north to south transitions from continental to oceanic rift (Rasul and Stewart, 2015). It is one of the youngest marine zones on Earth, propelled by an area of relatively slow seafloor spreading (≈1.6 cm/year). Together with the Gulf of Aqaba-Dead Sea transform fault, it forms the western boundary of the Arabian plate, which is moving in a north-easterly direction (Figure 1; Stern and Johnson, 2010). The plate is bounded by the Bitlis Suture and the Zagros fold belt and subduction zone to the north and north-east, and the Gulf of Aden spreading center and Owen Fracture Zone to the south and southeast. The Red Sea first formed about 25 Ma ago in response to crustal extension related to the interface movements of the African Plate, the Sinai Plate, and the Arabian Plate (Schardt, 2016). The present site of Red Sea rifting is controlled, or largely overprinting, on pre-existing structures in the crust, such as the Central African Fault Zone. In the area between 15° and 20° along the rift axis, active seafloor spreading is prominent and is characterized by the formation of oceanic crust with Mid-Ocean Ridge Basalt (MORB) composition for the last 3 Ma (Rasul and Stewart, 2015). In contrast, the northern portion of the Red Sea sits in a magmatic continental rift in which a mid-ocean ridge spreading centre is just beginning to form. That is, the split in the crust that is the Red Sea is unzipping from south to north (Figure 1).
The rift basement is covered a thick sequence of middle Miocene evaporites that precipitated in the earlier hydrographically isolated stage of rifting (Badenian – Middle Miocene). The maximum thickness of rift-fill sediments, including halokinetic salt, is around 8,000 m in the Morgan basin in the southern Red Sea (Farhoud, 2009; Ehrhardt et al., 2005). Girdler and Southren (1987) conclude that Miocene evaporites first accumulated on Red Sea transitional crust but must have later flowed downdip to now cover parts of the axial zone (basaltic) of the Plio-Pleistocene oceanic crust. At latitudes of 20° to 23° N, transform fracture zones provide focused passage-ways for salt flow. They also enable the involvement of dissolving salt in axial hydrothermal circulation, so producing pools of dense hot brines and the topographic isolation of spreading segments into evaporite-enclosed deeps (Feldens and Mitchell, 2015). So today, flow-like features cored by Miocene evaporites are situated along the axis of the Red Sea atop younger magnetic seafloor spreading anomalies. However, not all brine seeps occur in or near the deep axis of the Red Sea on the downdip edge of flowing Miocene salt, some occur in much shallower suprasalt positions nearer the coastal margins of the Red Sea, in waters just down dip of actively-growing well-lit coral reefs (Batang et al., 2012).
Six salt flows, most showing rounded fronts in plan-view, with heights of several hundred meters and widths between 3 and 10 km, are seen in high-resolution bathymetry and DSDP core material around Thetis Deep and Atlantis II Deep, and between Atlantis II Deep and Port Sudan Deep (Figure 2; Feldens and Mitchell, 2015; Mitchell et al., 2010). Relief on the underlying volcanic basement surface likely controls the positions of individual salt flow lobes. On the flow surfaces, along-slope and downslope ridge and trough morphologies have developed parallel to the local seafloor gradient, presumably due to the extension of the hemiplegic sediment cover or strike-slip movement within the evaporites.
Beneath waters more than a kilometre deep, along the deep rift axis, there are 26 brine pools and deeps, some of which are underlain by metalliferous sediments (Figure 3; Blanc and Anschutz 1995, Blum and Puchelt, 1991). Because of varying size, age, and formation history between the various deeps, Ehrhardt and Hübscher (2015) discriminate between central and northern Red Sea deeps. The larger central Red Sea deeps are located in the axial trough and are separated by inter-trough zones. They are floored by young basaltic crust and exhibit magnetic anomalies not older than 1.7 Ma. The northern Red Sea deeps are smaller and form only isolated deeps within the axial depression. Some of them are accompanied by volcanic activity. Many of the central Red Sea deeps contain bottom-water brines and metalliferous sediments, pointing to hydrothermal circulation of seawater (Schmidt et al., 2015). The largest and most prominent deep is the Atlantis II Deep, located in the central part of the Red Sea in the vicinity of other large deeps such as the Chain Deep and Discovery Deep. Other prominent deeps are the Tethys and Nereus Deeps further north, but still in the central part of the Red Sea.
Historically, the various deeps along the Red Sea rift axis are deemed to be initial seafloor spreading cells that will accrete sometime in the future into a continuous spreading axis. Northern Red Sea deeps are isolated structures often associated with single volcanic edifices in comparison to the further-developed and larger central Red Sea deeps where small spreading ridges are locally active (Ehrhardt and Hübscher, 2015). But not all deeps are related to initial seafloor spreading cells, and there are two types of ocean deeps: (a) volcanic and tectonically impacted deeps that opened by a lateral tear of the Miocene evaporites (salt) and Plio-Quaternary overburden; (b) non-volcanic deeps built by subsidence of Plio-Quaternary sediments due to evaporite subrosion (dissolution) processes. Type b) deeps develop as evaporite collapse structures (Figure 4: Ehrhardt and Hübscher, 2015). In contrast, the type (a) volcanic deeps can be correlated with their positions in NW–SE-oriented segments of the Red Sea, which are daylighted volcanic segments. The N–S segments, between these volcanically active NW–SE segments, is called a “non-volcanic segment” as no volcanic activity is known, in agreement with the magnetic data that shows no major anomalies. Accordingly, the deeps in the "nonvolcanic segments" are evaporite collapse-related structures creating discontinuities and brine breakout zones in and atop the salt sheets without the need for a seafloor spreading cell.
Both types of deeps, as defined by Ehrhardt and Hübscher (2015), are surrounded by thick halokinetic masses of Miocene salt with brine chemistry in the bottom brine layer that signposts ongoing halite subrosion and dissolution. Red Sea deeps were discovered in the 1960s at a time when lateral translation of salt (gliding and spreading) and the formation of density stratification that define deepsea hypersaline anoxic lakes (DHALS) were not known (Warren, 2016). Today, with our knowledge of seeps and hypersaline seafloor depressions in halokinetic terranes on the slope and rise in the Gulf of Mexico and accretionary ridges in the parts of the Mediterranean Sea, we now know that the brine-filled deeps on the floor of the Red Sea are just another example of DHALs. What is most interesting in the chemical make-up Red Sea DHALS are the elevated levels of iron, copper and lead that occur in some deeps, especially the deepest and one of the most hypersaline set of linked depressions known as the Atlantis II deep (Figure 6).
Most Red Sea deeps contain waters with somewhat elevated salinities, compared to normal seawater. Bulk chemistry of major ions in bottom brines from the various Red Sea DHALS are covariant and are derived by dissolution of the adjacent and underlying Miocene halite (Figure 7; replotted from Schmidt et al., 2015).
Economically, the most important brine pool is the Atlantis II Deep; other smaller deeps, with variable development of metalliferous muds and brine sumps, include; Commission Plain, Hatiba, Thetis, Nereus, Vema, Gypsum, Kebrit and Shaban Deeps (Figure 3; Chapter 15, Warren 2016). Laminites of the Atlantis II Deep are highly metalliferous, while the Kebrit and Shaban deeps are of metalliferous interest in that fragments of massive sulphide from hydrothermal chimney sulphides were recovered in bottom grab samples (Blum and Puchelt, 1991). All Red Sea DHALS are located in sumps along the spreading axis, in the region of the median valley. Most of these axial troughs and deeps are also located where transverse faults, inferred from bathymetric data, seismic, or from continuation of continental fracture lines, cross the median rift valley in regions that are also characterised by halokinetic Miocene salt. Not all Red Sea deeps are DHALS and not all Red Sea DHALS overlie metalliferous laminites.
The variably metalliferous seafloor deeps or deepsea hypersaline anoxic lakes (DHALs) in the deep water axial rift of the Red Sea define the metalliferous end of a spectrum of worldwide DHALs formed in response to sub-seafloor dissolution of shallowly-buried halokinetic salt masses. What makes the Red sea deeps unique is that they can host substantial amounts of metal sulphides, and, as Pierre et al. (2010) show, a Red Sea deep without the seafloor brine lake, is not significantly mineralised.
In my opinion, it is the intersection of the DHAL setting with an active to incipient midocean ridge (ultimate metal source), and a lack of sedimentation in the DHAL, other than hydrothermal precipitates (including widespread hydrothermal anhydrite), that explains the size and extent of the Atlantis II deposit. Its salt-dissolution-related brine hydrology, with a lack of detrital input, changes the typical mid-ocean massive-sulphide ridge deposit (with volumes usually around 300,000 and up to 3 million tonnes; Hannington et al., 2011) into a more stable brine-stratified bottom hydrology, which can fix metals over longer time and stability frames, so that the known sulphide accumulation in the Atlantis II Deep today has a metal reserve that exceeds 90 million tonnes.
Augustin, N., C. W. Devey, F. M. van der Zwan, P. Feldens, M. Tominaga, R. A. Bantan, and T. Kwasnitschka, 2014, The rifting to spreading transition in the Red Sea: Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v. 395, p. 217-230.
Batang, Z. B., E. Papathanassiou, A. Al-Suwailem, C. Smith, M. Salomidi, G. Petihakis, N. M. Alikunhi, L. Smith, F. Mallon, T. Yapici, and N. Fayad, 2012, First discovery of a cold seep on the continental margin of the central Red Sea: Journal of Marine Systems, v. 94, p. 247-253.
Blanc, G., and P. Anschutz, 1995, New stratification in the hydrothermal brine system of the Atlantis II Deep, Red Sea: Geology, v. 23, p. 543-546.
Blum, N., and H. Puchelt, 1991, Sedimentary-hosted polymetallic massive sulphide deposits of the Kebrit and Shaban Deeps, Red Sea.: Mineralium Deposita, v. 26, p. 217-227.
Ehrhardt, A., and C. Hübscher, 2015, The Northern Red Sea in Transition from Rifting to Drifting-Lessons Learned from Ocean Deeps, in N. M. A. Rasul, and I. C. F. Stewart, eds., The Red Sea: Berlin Heidelberg, Springer p. 99-121.
Ehrhardt, A., C. Hübscher, and D. Gajewski, 2005, Conrad Deep, Northern Red Sea: Development of an early stage ocean deep within the axial depression: Tectonophysics, v. 411, p. 19-40.
Farhoud, K., 2009, Accommodation zones and tectono-stratigraphy of the Gulf of Suez, Egypt: a contribution from aeromagnetic analysis: GeoArabia, v. 14, p. 139-162.
Feldens, P., and N. C. Mitchell, 2015, Salt Flows in the Central Red Sea, in N. M. A. Rasul, and I. C. F. Stewart, eds., The Red Sea: Springer Earth System Sciences: Berlin Heidelberg, Springer p. 205-218.
Girdler, R. W., and T. C. Southren, 1987, Structure and evolution of the northern Red Sea: Nature, v. 330, p. 716-721.
Hannington, M., J. Jamieson, T. Monecke, S. Petersen, and S. Beaulieu, 2011, The abundance of seafloor massive sulfide deposits: Geology, v. 39, p. 1155-1158.
Pierret, M. C., N. Clauer, D. Bosch, and G. Blanc, 2010, Formation of Thetis Deep metal-rich sediments in the absence of brines, Red Sea: Journal of Geochemical Exploration, v. 104, p. 12-26.
Rasul, N. M. A., and I. C. F. Stewart, 2015, The Red Sea: Springer Earth System Sciences, Springer, 638 p.
Rowan, M. G., 2014, Passive-margin salt basins: hyperextension, evaporite deposition, and salt tectonics: Basin Research, v. 26, p. 154-182.
Schardt, C., 2016, Hydrothermal fluid migration and brine pool formation in the Red Sea: the Atlantis II Deep: Mineralium Deposita, v. 51, p. 89-111.
Schmidt, M., R. Al-Farawati, and R. Botz, 2015, Geochemical Classification of Brine-Filled Red Sea Deeps, in N. M. A. Rasul, and I. C. F. Stewart, eds., The Red Sea: Berlin Heidelberg, Springer-Verlag, p. 219-233.
Stern, R. J., and P. R. Johnson, 2010, Continental lithosphere of the Arabian Plate: a geologic, petrologic, and geophysical synthesis: Earth Science Reviews, v. 101, p. 29-67.
Warren, J. K., 2016, Evaporites: A compendium (ISBN 978-3-319-13511-3) Released Feb. 2016: Berlin, Springer, 1854 p.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 V. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.