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1 Bureau of Mineral Resources, GPO Box 378, Canberra City, 2601, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
2 CSIRO Division of Soils, Private Bag No. 2, Glen Osmond, South Australia, 5064, Australia
3 School of Earth Sciences, Flinders University of South Australia, Bedford Park, South Australia, 5042, Australia
4 Department of Geology, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina 27834, USA
5 New Zealand Oceanographic Institute, DSIR, Private Bag, Kilbirnie, Wellington, New Zealand
Detailed sedimentological and geochemical studies of phosphorites and sediments from the East Australian continental margin have shown that both apatite and glauconite are forming at a transition zone between relict, iron oxyhydroxide-rich, organic-poor (TOC<0.3%) outer shelf (200–350 m) sediments and relatively rapidly accumulating, iron oxyhydroxide-deficient, organic-rich (TOC>0.8%) deep water (460–650 m) sediments. The interaction between sediment mixing and Fe-P cycling processes (between the pore waters and the solid phase) appear critical to the formation of modern phosphorites in this area. The phosphate nodules form within the anoxic zone in the sediments at depths of approximately 10–18 cm below the sediment-seawater interface. Nodules which remain in the sediment mixed layer after they form continue to accumulate both P and Fe for up to 60 ka; during this time their apatite and iron oxyhydroxide contents more than double and the nodules become denser and more lithified. Apatite and glauconite formation are favoured by periods of high sea-level and low current velocities, as these conditions allow a relatively high organic carbon input to the sediments and thereby the maintenance of anoxia at shallow depths within the sediments. During periods of low sea-level and high current velocities, the carbon flux into the sediments decreases and the sediments become oxic. Consequently the Fe-cycling processes cease and apatite and glauconite formation stops: the glauconite is progressively transformed to goethite, and phosphorite nodules are concentrated into lag deposits and ferruginized. Alternations of high and low sea-level cycles eventually result in the formation of the massive ferruginous Neogene phosphorites that mantle much of the outer shelf. The iron enrichment processes observed in the modern to Neogene phosphorites on the East Australian continental margin provide explanations for many of the features seen in ferruginous Neogene deposits in the world’s oceans.
