Tip to midpoint observations on syntectonic veins, Ouachita orogen, Arkansas: Trading space for time

摘要

By examining a vein from its tip to center, we have established the transition from a single filled fracture at the vein tip to typical 'crack-seal' textures observed in fibered, laminated veins. The vein is contained in the boudin neck of a sandstone layer within the Lower Ordovician Mazarn Formation, Benton Uplift, Ouachita orogen. The tip of the vein is composed of one or more isolated veinlets, defined as quartz-filled narrow (5-25 μm) fractures parallel to the larger vein's long dimension. Scanned SEM-based cath-odoluminescence shows that quartz laminae of the same orientation and thickness are found throughout the vein. Wall-normal fibers first appear in the vein where detrital grains are cut by multiple veinlets, each veinlet mimicking the crystallographic orientation of the detrital grain, whereas later veinlets reflect the established crystallographic orientation of the fiber. Fibers throughout the vein retain evidence of having been formed by repeated fracturing and filling of a pre-existing grain (at the vein walls) or fiber. However, recrystallization later modified the fibers by obliterating some evidence of the veinlets and moving fiber walls. Boudin formation provided the extension site that localized fracturing and vein filling. The vein grows by the repeated addition of veinlets in the neck region. Recrystallization altered the shape of previously formed fibers.