Highlights—SIMS Analyses of Quartz Cementation Processes

Evaluating the timing and origin of quartz cement is central to understanding how porosity is lost in sandstone during burial. In this contribution, Harwood et al. describe high-precision, in situ oxygen isotope analyses of sandstone from the Jurassic Ness Formation from the North Sea. The results reveal the growth history of single quartz overgrowths to a resolution of 2 µm. Combined petrographic and isotopic data are interpreted in terms of a process in which quartz cement formed continuously from 60-70°C to the current maximum temperature of 130°C in a highly restricted system within which waters evolved isotopically as a result of water-rock reactions. The data are consistent with predictive, conceptual quartz cementation models and provide a critical link from micron-scale measurements to basin-scale predictions and observations.

Quartz cementation history of sandstones revealed byhigh-resolution SIMS oxygen isotope analysis by Joseph Harwood, Andrew C. Aplin, Claire I. Fialips, James E. Iliffe, Reinhard Kozdon, Takayuki Ushikubo, and John W. Valley