RUI: Diagenetic Fluid Movement Through Non-Marine Mudstones of the Early Mesozoic Newark Supergroup

细粒沉积物被认为是地下流体流动的屏障，但北美东部中生代早期纽瓦克超群的非海相泥岩中含有丰富的粗晶自生矿物。这些泥岩还在几个尺度上显示沉积旋回，反映了古气候波动，并为非常精确的地层对比提供了手段。这是对Newark泥岩中自生矿物在区域尺度上的详细岩石学研究，以确定它们如何随地层位置以及其他重要因素（如地理位置、沉积环境和与火成岩侵入体的接近程度）而变化。通过与许多其他专家密切合作，特别是美国地质调查局沉积过程分部的约瑟夫·斯穆特博士，我们将能够使用许多不同的分析技术来解决这个问题。这些结果将阐明以下两个问题：1)地下水在浅层地下如何随长期气候波动而变化；2)泥岩如何以及为什么可以作为晚期成岩流体流动的管道。无论哪种方式，它们都应该在许多领域提供重要的新见解，例如沉积物矿床的形成。

Fine-grained sediments are thought of as barriers to subsurface fluid flow, but non-marine mudstones in the early Mesozoic Newark Supergroup of eastern North America contain an abundance of coarsely crystalline authigenic minerals. These mudstones also display depositional cycles on several scales that reflect paleoclimatic fluctuations and provide the means for very precise stratigraphic correlation. This is a detailed petrographic study of the authigenic minerals in the Newark mudstones on a regional scale to determine how they vary as a function of stratigraphic position, as well as other important factors such as geographic location, depositional environment, and proximity to igneous intrusions. By working closely with a number of other specialists, particularly Dr. Joseph Smoot of the U.S.G.S. Branch of Sedimentary Processes, we will be able to use a number of different analytical techniques to attack this problem. The results will shed light either on 1) how groundwater varies in the shallow subsurface as a function of long-term climatic fluctuation, or 2) how and why mudstones can served as conduits for late diagenetic fluid flow. Either way, they should provide important new insights in a variety of areas, e.g. the formation of sediment- hosted ore deposits.