Iron speciation related to color of Jurassic sedimentary rocks in Turpan Basin, northwest China

Mesozoic-Cenozoic reddish and green beds are widely distributed in northwest China. Mössbauer spectroscopy revealed that the composition of iron species varies with color in the middle-upper Jurassic sedimentary rocks from the Turpan Basin. Three main kinds of iron species were identified: (1) ferric iron of hematite (hem-Fe³⁺), (2) paramagnetic ferric iron (para-Fe³⁺), and (3) paramagnetic ferrous iron (para-Fe²⁺). Pyrite iron (pyr-Fe²⁺) was revealed only in a few samples. In general, there is a direct correlation between rock color, iron species and total iron content, however, in detail, this relationship is more complicated. The reddish rocks contain higher contents of total iron and hem-Fe³⁺, whereas the gray rocks contain much more para-Fe²⁺. However, relatively low hematite content cannot give red color to rocks, probably due to suppression by other pigments such as organic matter in black or chlorite in green. The dark or green rocks normally contain either only paramagnetic Fe²⁺ and paramagnetic Fe³⁺ species or these two species associated with hematite Fe³⁺, but the relative content of hematite species is lower. The variations of different iron species control lithological properties such as color and also may reflect the sedimentary conditions. Moreover, iron speciation in these rocks is one of the main factors, which result the color features of rocks in remote sensing imagery.This revised version was published online in November 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.