U-Pb Dating of Carbonates: A Complement to Clumped Isotope Analyses

Carbonates are ubiquitous in nature, forming in a variety of settings at the surface and through burial. The field and petrographic relationships of carbonate phases can often be linked to the depositional setting and burial path(s) that the sedimentary pile has experienced. Clumped isotopes are taking on an important role of testing the temperature of formation of the carbonates, and combined with other approaches such as fluid inclusion analyses offers tremendous potential for testing basin evolution models. However, while the relative ages of carbonates are often fairly easily elucidated, the absolute ages of the events recorded in carbonates are not. U-Pb dating of carbonates offers the best potential for constraining the ages. However, not all fluids have favorable U/Ca ratios.

U-Pb dated groundwater carbonates from the Late Triassic New Haven Arkose give an age of 211 +/- 2 Ma, consistent with the known age of deposition. Late bright luminescent calcite from the same formation gives an age of 81+/-11 Ma, constraining the age (both primary and secondary) of carbonate formation. Clumped isotope analyses of primary carbonate phases show somewhat elevated temperatures between 50-60^o C, some 30 degrees hotter than other estimates for this Triassic equatorial setting, and are more likely the result of re-ordering of ¹³C-¹⁸O bonds at depth. Apparently the primary calcite, appears to have preserved its depositional U-Pb systematics, however bond re-ordering or recrystallization of these carbonates appear to reflect values closer to thermal equilibrium with the last phase of carbonate formation (bright luminescent calcite, 81 ± 11 Ma). Further work on these samples will target these younger calcites to determine if this later calcite phase records similar temperatures.