Response of Reactive Phosphorus Burial to the Sedimentary Transition from Cretaceous Black Shales to Oceanic Red Beds in Southern Tibet

Abstract: The mechanism of sedimentary transition from the Cretaceous black shales to the oceanic red beds is a new and important direction of Cretaceous research. Chemical sequential extraction is applied to study the burial records of reactive phosphorus in the black shale of the Gyabula Formation and oceanic red beds of the Chuangde Formation, Southern Tibet. Results indicate that the principal reactive phosphorus species is the authigenic and carbonate‐associated phosphorus (CaP) in the Gyabula Formation and iron oxides‐associated phosphorus (FeP) in the Chuangde Formation which accounts for more than half of their own total phosphorus content. While the authigenic and carbonate‐associated phosphorus (CaP) is almost equal in the two Formations; the iron oxides‐associated phosphorus is about 1.6 times higher in the Chuangde Formation than that in the Gyabula Formation resulting in a higher content of the total phosphorus in the Chuangde Formation. According to the observations on the marine phosphorus cycle in Modern Ocean, it is found that preferential burial and regeneration of reactive phosphorus corresponds to highly oxic and reducing conditions, respectively, leading to the different distribution of phosphorus in these two distinct type of marine sediments. It is the redox‐sensitive behavior of phosphorus cycle to the different redox conditions in the ocean and the controlling effects of phosphorus to the marine production that stimulate the local sedimentary transition from the Cretaceous black shale to the oceanic red beds.