Highlights—Persistent Fractures and Diagenesis

Syndepositional deformation features can impact depositional geometries, but can they also represent fluid conduits active throughout a strata's entire history? In this paper, Budd et al. address this question using petrographic, geomechanical, and clumped-isotope analysis of diagenetic products in syndepositional fractures (Permian, Guadalupe Mountains, New Mexico, USA).  Results show that the complex diagenetic fills in the fractures are multigenerational, and represent numerous, repeated fracture openings, fills, and reactivation over ~260 Ma since deposition.  The results highlight the potential for re-activated syndepositional fractures in a carbonate platform to dominate fluid flow in that platform and to drive the diagenetic history of adjacent host rocks.

Syndepositional deformation features in high-relief carbonate platforms: long-lived conduits for diagenetic fluids by David A. Budd, Edmund L. Frost, III, Katharine W. Huntington, and Patricia F. Allwardt