Worm tubes in an allochthonous cold-seep carbonate from lower Oligocene rocks of western Washington

Tubes suspected to be those of vestimentiferan worms are abundant in carbon ate boulders at one locality in the lower Oligocene part of the Lincoln Cre ek Formation along the Canyon River, Grays Harbor County, Washington. The l argest tubes exhibit the same general orientation and are arranged in clust ers. The tube walls are preserved as aragonite that is, in some cases, repl aced by silica. The original tube walls either had a high carbonate content or were indurated very early by aragonite mineralization of the organic wa ll. The carbonate cements around, on, and inside of the tubes were precipit ated due to the microbial oxidation of hydrocarbons at a cold-seep. After l ithification, the carbonate fragmented as it slid or slumped, along with ot her sedimentary debris, downslope into deeper waters. This is one of the fe w reports of an ancient cold-seep chemosynthetic community dominated by tub e worms, and the third report of an allochthonous cold-seep carbonate withi n a deep-water depositional setting.