<b>Abstract:</b> The formation of naturally occurring dolomite is not well understood, generating the so-called “dolomite problem”, that is, the fact that dolomite is abundant in Precambrian rocks (&gt;541 Ma), but does not precipitate from seawater at environmentally relevant conditions on Earth. Here we present a comparison of Ediacaran (550 Ma) dolomite ooids (1) and synthetically grown dolomite spherulites (2), showing commonalities and differences in how crystals are arranged and oriented with respect to one another at the mesoscale, that is, between 10 nm and 100 µm. These data were acquired with Polarization-dependent Imaging Contrast (PIC) mapping (3), a method not previously used in other rock formations.

Mesoscale structure of Ediacaran and synthetic dolomite spherulites

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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