Md.Sultan-Ul-Islam:

You may like to have a look at this link for some clues to your query:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0009254110002627

Best

Syed

Professor

Assuming you are talking siliciclastics, glauconite content is usually the simplest indicator, although it may be reworked.  The geochemical approach in the nice paper mentioned by Syed above really only tells you something about the source of the sediments, not the depositional environment.

Ciao

John

Md.Sultan-Ul-Islam:

Except earliest Permian marine signatures in Indian Gondwana, where else do you expect to find marine environment? Moreover, there are elemental and isotopic tools to interpret palaeoenvironments when the sequence is unfossiliferous. Kindly see this link for example:

https://www.ipen.br/biblioteca/2012/eventos/18772.pdf

Best

Syed

Thanks many Dr Syed Abbas Jafar for you suggestion. Actually I found this sequence in the lower Gondwana rocks in Bangladesh. But I have no access to isotopic analysis. With regards, Sultan

Dear Ashkan Vafadar, I am trying to identify marine signature from Permian lower Gondwana sequence in Bangladesh. These are fine grained sequence in between conglomerate and diamictite.

Thank you John Gorter for your suggestion.

Professor,

we had a similar problem in a gas field in the Bonaparte Basin of northern Australia.  While we had diamictites, most likely glacially derived as occurred onshore, and interbedded finer clastics including sandstones and shales, there was little direct evidence of depositional environment.  There were a few spinose acritarchs in the shales, and like the occasional glauconite could easily have been reworked, as they were not very specific.  The best indicators of a marine influence in the environment were trace fossils, not fully marine, but indicative.  For that you need core if offshore.  There was a poster at the AAPG Conference in Milan, Italy, back in 2011 on this field.  I don't have a copy unfortunately. 

I do have a paper on the same area published a few years before the poster but I don't think it available on ReseachGate.  If you provide your email I may be able to send you an electronic copy for private use, although it is rather large.

Ciao

John

Professor,

Have you tried the organic geochemistry analysis? You can identify the environment as marine or terrestrial using the biomarkers approach.

Shirin,

I agree, organic geochemical analysis should help, unfortunately in the sandy section I researched (now uploaded to ResearchGate unger Gorter, Poynter etc 2008 ) had little organic matter.  Figure 21 may be worth a look though.

Professor,

Another possible geochemicl indicator is the presence of ikaite, although on its own it does not provide a unique solution.  I have attached a non peer-reviewed article from a Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia magazine discussing the presence or absence of ikaite in Australian Permian glacially influenced strata.

Ciao

John

I Iagree that the sandy samples may not contain enough organic matter. However, it is still worth the check (I managed to get quite good data from my sandy Permian samples). BTW, where there are glendonites on Pebbly Beach? I've seen them in Ulladulla but not on Pebbley Beach.

Dear Colleague,

I agree that organic geochemistry is worth pursuing. We have worked on marine sediments (unconsolidated) with very low organic content and managed to retrieve sensible isotopic and C/N ratios (the latter can be used as a crude indicator to distinguish between aquatic and terrestrial sources). If available, the 87Sr/86Sr ratio of biogenic precipitates can be used to distinguish between water sources (e.g. river and marine: Science 255, 68-72), when applied on Quaternary sediments at least.

Thank you friend.