Meteoritic diagenesis is a transformation that occurs at or near the Earth’s surface in strata influenced or penetrated by water of recent atmospheric origin. The meteoritic environment is generally divided into unsaturated (vadose) and saturated (phreatic) zones separated by a water table (see top diagram, opposite page). The interfaces between surficial meteoritic fluids and layers filled with other pore fluids (seawater or groundwater) are “mixing zones” that may have special diagenetic properties. Many, perhaps most, near-surface marine carbonate deposits undergo meteoritic diagenesis, either as a result of the buildup of sediments above sea level or as a result of a drop in sea level that exposes platform carbonates. In addition, meteoric water can circulate far below the land surface and alter carbonate deposits that are far older than the exposure interval. Meteoric processes typically occur over periods of hundreds to millions of years.

1. From the geological view
Understanding the
 composition and mineralogy of the rock
 spatial and textural relationships between
detrital grains
 authigenic minerals
 pore geometries
 Age
From the environmental view
Understanding
 temperature,
 fluid chemistry
 pressure
From hydrology/hydrological view
Understanding
 hydraulic conductivity
 the volumetric water content
 matric pressure
From the physics view
understanding
Fluid dynamic by applying
 Richards’ equation for vadose
zone
 Darcy’s law for saturated zone
From geomorphological view
Determine the density, lengths?, aspect
ratios, and shapes of the solution
pipes
Understanding the diagenesis of the solution pipes in nature

2. Laboratory setup and determining the parameters
• Grain size of carbonate materials from the studied sample
• pH value of the fluid
• Temperature
• Flow rate
• Types of the sample
 polished specimen or
 unconsolidated material

3. • Some comments on your presentation from Piotr
• 1) Richard's equation is for the vadose zone, Darcy’s - for the phreatic zone
• 2) for gypsum dissolution rather than pH you should monitor calcium ion
concentration (we have a device to do it)
• 3) volumetric water content - I don't think measuring it on the forms as
they are right now will be relevant to the times when they were actually
forming
• 4) geomorphology - there is much more to be measured regarding the
distribution - radial distribution function & and structure factor,
orientational order parameters, etc
•