Definition
Marine evaporites form by extreme evaporation of seawater either directly in an open-water environment with restricted circulation or diagenetically from sediment pore waters.
Introduction
Geology hangs its interpretive powers on the principal of uniformitarianism, i.e., the present is the key to the past. Unfortunately for marine evaporates, there is no present example for the thick, aerially extensive ancient evaporite deposits (“saline giants”). That would require a large, deep basin with a marine connection but with restricted circulation, and a huge influx of seawater for a long time. The marine connection could be surface water or marine-fed groundwater. It would also require a warm climate with extreme net evaporation that existed for a long time. The Quaternary is not a good analog for the extent and distribution of climates that existed throughout most of the Phanerozoic because during the Quaternary the world was in an icehouse mode. However, during most of the...
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Dean, W.E. (2016). Marine Evaporites. In: Harff, J., Meschede, M., Petersen, S., Thiede, J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Marine Geosciences. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6238-1_188
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