Geochemistry of Late Permian to Early Triassic pelagic cherts from southwest Japan: implications for an oceanic redox change

Major, trace, and rare earth element abundances were determined for the southwestern Japanese pelagic chert sequence from the early Late Permian to early Early Triassic to investigate a redox change in deep-sea pelagic environments before and at the Permo-Triassic boundary (PTB) (251 Ma). The sequence was primarily deposited in the deep-sea of the superocean Panthalassa, and then was accreted to Japan in the Middle Jurassic. A remarkable lithostratigraphic change from red chert to siliceous similar to carbonaceous claystone through gray chert is observed in this sequence. Constituent elements for these sedimentary rocks are essentially derived from two sources: (1) an ancient seawater via biogenic (mainly radiolarian), hydrothermal, and authigenic materials and (2) an average shale-like terrigenous material. The present measurement demonstrates significant stratigraphic changes of the Ce/Cenon-ter* value (estimated Ce anomaly value of non-terrigenous component, recalculated by subtraction of terrigenous REEs from bulk REEs) and the (Mn/TE)(sample)/(Mn/TE)(PAAS) value (excess Mn component other than terrigenous one; TE = terrigenous elements including Ti, Al, Nb, Hf, Th; PAAS = Post-Archean Average Australian Shale) in the Permian chert. The Ce/Cenon-ter* values increase from < 0.2 to 1 and the (Mn/TE)(sample)/(Mn/TE)(PAAS) values decrease up-section, suggesting that the redox condition of deep-sea open-ocean changed from oxic to suboxic in an interval of approximately 10 Myr. The (SigmaFe/TE)(sample)/(SigmaFe/TE)(PAAS) and (Mn/TE)(sample)/(Mn/TE)(PAAS) values of carbonaceous claystone near or at the PTB are less than unity, suggesting that reductive dissolution of iron and manganese occurred under an anoxic condition. This supports the idea of the PTB oceanic anoxia in the superocean Panthalassa. The present data suggest that the anoxic condition prevailed in the deep-sea pelagic regions for an extremely long period, much more than 10 Myr, from the middle Late Permian to early Early Triassic. This long-term development of widespread oceanic anoxia may have been linked to the greatest mass extinction of the Phanerozoic. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.