Crack-seal veins: records of 600-million-year complex tectonic and fluid flow evolution in Saudi Arabia

The Ediacaran Period (635-538 Ma) was marked by considerable tectonic activity, including the end of the Pan-African episode – a long interval of mountain building, rifting, and reorganization spanning most of the Neoproterozoic Era. In Saudi Arabia, the Ediacaran outcrops were developed and preserved in several isolated half-grabens linked to the Ediacaran to early Cambrian Najd strike-slip fault system. This fault system manifested, particularly in the study area, as intensive fractures with a distinctive crack-seal veins morphology. Understanding the mechanism and origin of such fractures could provide unique insights into the structural evolution and paleo fluid flow throughout the history of the Arabian Plate. However, no studies have focused on different structural-controlled diagenetic processes in the Neoproterozoic sequences across the Arabian Plate. Here, we examined precipitated veins along a well-exposed 300 m thick Ediacaran host rock exposure by integrating high-resolution geochemical analyses, carbonate clumped isotopes, fluid inclusions, advanced petrography analysis of Cathodoluminescence microscopy to unravel the structural diagenesis of these Ediacaran strata. The δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C of the carbonate host rocks vary from -11.79 to -7.83‰, and -0.58‰ to 1.1‰, respectively. The estimated paleotemperature of the host rock derived from the clumped isotope is 47-60°C. Furthermore, the current results show that the calcite veins appear in different stages, orientations, geometries, and mineralogy. The δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C of the crack-seal veins vary between -11.2 to -7.8 ‰ and -2.9 to 1.9‰, respectively. The estimated clumped-derived paleotemperature of this vein is 95°C, even higher up to 136°C by utilizing the fluid inclusions. On the other hand, the Mn-rich later phase veins, which cross-cut the crack-seal veins, indicate an isotopic composition of -10.9 to -10.6‰ for δ¹⁸O and -18.2 to -15‰ for δ¹³C, with the estimated paleotemperature of 74-84°C. Hence, we argue that the structural diagenesis history in the study area comprises several distinct tectonic events and fluid circulation members along the fractures associated with different stages of basin evolution. Our findings, for the first time, offer a new understanding of paleo fluid circulation and also highlight the multi-proxy’s potential for investigating the structural diagenesis of calcite veins in the Ediacaran host rock in Arabia.