• The Journal of the Petrological Society of Korea
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.132-145
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• 1998

The coal-bearing siliciclastic rocks of the Lower Permian Jangseong Formation, Samcheog coalfield, represent a megacyclothem which shows cyclic repetitions of sandstone, shale, coaly shale, and coals. Petrographic, geochemical, and SEM studies for sandstone samples, and XRD analysis for clay minerals were carried out to understand diagenesis in the sandstones of the Jangseong Formation. The Jangseong sandstones are composed of 60% quartz (mainly monocrystalline quartz) and 36% clay matrix and cement with minor amounts of feldspar, lithic fragments and accessory minerals (less than 4%). Jangseong sandstones are classified mostly as quartzwackes and partly as lithic graywackes according to the scheme of Dott(1964). The textural relationships between authigenic minerals and cements in thin sections and SEM photomicrographs suggest the paragenetic sequence as follows; (1) mechanical compaction, (2) cementation by quartz overgrowth, (3) formation of authigenic clay minerals (illite, kaolinite), (4) dissolution of framework grains and development of secondary porosity, and (5) later-stage pore-filling by pyrophyllite. We propose that these diagenetic processes might be due to organic-inorganic interaction between the dominant framework grains and the formation water. The Al, Si ions and organic acid, derived from dewatering of interbedded organic-rich shale and coals, were transported into the Jangseong sandstones. This caused changes in the chemistry of the formation water of the sandstones, and resulted in overgrowth of quartz and precipitation of authigenic clay minerals of kaolinite and illite. The secondary pores, produced during dissolution of clay and framework grains by organic acid and $CO_2$ gas, were conduit for silica-rich solution into the Jangseong sandstones and the influx of silica-rich solution produced the late-stage pyrophyllite after the expanse of kaolinite. The origin of the solution that formed pyrophyllite is not likely to be the organic-rich formation water based on the observation of fracture-filling pyrophyllite in the Jangseong sandstones, but the process of pyrophyllite pore-filling was indirectly related to organic-inorganic interaction.