Cretaceous coastal lagoon facies: Geochemical insights into multi-stage diagenesis and palaeoclimatic signals

This study explores the depositional and diagenetic controls forcing elemental distribution across dynamic shallow carbonate settings, as is the case of coastal lagoons. Complex and atypical elemental fingerprints, established by means of statistical analysis, provide arguments to reconstruct the evolution of the examined carbonate materials. Our findings are highly pertinent, as they: (i) provide a rich dataset not only regarding Lusitanian Basin deposits, but also for coeval settings where basin evolution and diagenesis are pivotal; (ii) underline the insight to be gained from time series analyses of raw elemental data collected from carbonate facies; and (iii) place a suite of numerical analyses within a logical hierarchy for stratigraphic facies analysis, fully supported by independent data.