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W. F. Falls

Publications and source records attributed to W. F. Falls.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

Lithologic descriptions of two cores and ground-water-quality data from five counties in the northeastern part of the coastal plain of South Carolina, 1988 and 1991

This report presents data collected as part of a hydrologic investigation of Darlington, Dillon, Florence, Marion, and Marlboro Counties in the northeastern part of the Coastal Plain of South Carolina. These data include lithologic descriptions of sediment recovered from two continuously cored boreholes and water-quality results for samples collected from 17 existing wells. One continuously cored borehole was drilled near Lake Darpo in the northern part of Darlington County to a total depth of 447 feet below land surface. The other borehole was drilled in Lake City in the south-central part of Florence County to a total depth of 1,090 feet below land surface. Water-quality results presented in this report include specific conductance, dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, alkalinity, major- and minor-ion chemistry, and hydrogen sulfide.

South Carolina

Role of microbial processes in linking sandstone diagenesis with organic-rich clays

Numerous chemical reactions within clay sequences have been proposed to produce dissolved material for diagenesis of deeply-buried sands. However, reactions responsible for solubilizing inorganic and organic constituents in clays at intermediate depths, and their importance to sandstone diagenesis, have not been evaluated. Results from this study show that the processes of microbial organic-acid production (via fermentation) in clays and microbial organic-acid consumption (via sulfate reduction) in sands effectively link organic-rich clays to sandstone diagenesis in the Black Creek Formation of South Carolina. Diagenetic processes have resulted in the formation of 10 volume percent calcite cement, 0.1 volume percent authigenic pyrite, and 1.5 volume percent secondary porosity in Black Creek sands. However, the distribution of these diagenetic processes is not uniform, resulting in net destruction of porosity in some parts of the sand and net porosity enhancement in other parts. Mass balance-derived rates of microbial organic-acid production (10 (super -5) mmole carbon 1 (super -1) yr (super -1) ) and microbial CO 2 production (4 x 10 (super -5) mmole l (super -1) yr (super -1) ) show that microbial processes can account for all organic carbon in the calcite cements (at least 11% of carbonate carbon based on isotope-balance calculations), all observed authigenic pyrite, and all observed secondary porosity. These findings show that microbial processes can serve to link organic-rich clays with sandstone diagenesis at intermediate depths.

Journal of Sedimentary Petrology