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Clastic Depositional

Environments
The main environments for coarse
clastic deposition
• Fluvial Environments
• Deserts
• Lacustrine Environment
• Deltas
• Shoreline Marine Environments
• Shallow marine shelves and epeiric seas
• Continental margins and deep water basins
• Glacial Environments
Fluvial Sedimentary
Environments
Alluvial Fans
The Start of the Sedimentary Cycle
• Bedrock weathered away from uplifted
areas (mountain ranges)
• Carried away in mountain streams
• Start the process of building up
sedimentary deposits.
• First of these deposits to form: Alluvial
fans
How do alluvial fans form?
• When a narrow (confined) canyon stream
disgorges onto a valley floor
• Sudden deceleration in flow and in
gradient
– Decreased ability in the stream to carry
coarser material: this is dropped.
• Results in a cone-shaped deposit of
coarse stream sediments, sheet flood
deposits and debris flows: Alluvial Fan
RADIAL FAN SECTION

Typical structure
of an alluvial fan
FAN
SURFACE

RADIAL PROFILE
• Alluvial fans best known from arid/ semi-arid
environments, where periodic flow occurs in the
canyons but also occur in humid environments.
– Usually triangular in map view and wedge-shaped in
cross section.
– Slopes range from 1 – 25°, average 5-10°.
– The larger the particle size, the steeper the slope.
• Described as “active” when the fan is building or
“inactive” when it is not.
– To be active: must be continued uplift and erosion of
highlands to supply sediment: fault scarps are
common sites of alluvial fans.
RADIAL FAN SECTION

Typical
structure
of an
FAN
SURFACE
alluvial
fan

RADIAL PROFILE
• Alluvial fans can build out onto:
– Playas
– Lakes
– Floodplains of permanent rivers
– Coastal plains
– Directly into the sea (fan deltas)
• The surface of the fan is dissected by
radiating channels
What sort of sediments are found
on alluvial fans?
• Generally coarser than other fluvial
deposits (short transport distance)
• Compositionally immature
• Grain size normally decreases down-fan
• Upper- Mid- and Lower-Fan facies can be
distinguished.
Transport of material on alluvial
fans
• Three methods:
– Debris flow
– Stream flow
– Mud flow
Debris Flow on Alluvial Fans
• When sediment becomes saturated with water: flows as
a viscous plastic mass: behaves like quicksand
• High density – High Viscosity Flow
• Debris flow can carry very large boulders and also clays
and fine particles
• Results in very poorly sorted deposits with little or no
stratification
• Sometimes the base of a debris flow shows inverse
grading (grain size increases upwards)
• Generally form lobes in the upper reaches of the fan.
Debris Flow on Alluvial Fans
• Produces laterally extensive beds without
erosive bases
• Matrix-support fabric
Stream Flow/ Stream Floods
• In arid environments
• Flash floods in canyons: extreme erosional power.
• Low viscosity Flow
• As flow velocity decreases, bounders, cobbles and
pebbles are dropped (clast supported fabric).
• Results in a flow that is choked with more sediment than
it can carry: braided streams form on the fan (dry up
quickly)
• Each flood cuts new channels, filling old ones with
gravel.
• Produce cross-bedded pebbly sandstones with
imbrication: generally upper / mid-fan deposits
Stream Flow: Sheetflood deposits
• At high flood levels, sand and gravel-rich flow covers the
mid-fan (N.B. no fine material): Sheetflood Deposits
• Typically well sorted, stratified and cross-bedded.
• Commonly form lobes than emerge from the channel at
the intersection point of the fan surface & the channel
profile
• Little silt/ clay so water flows freely through these
deposits without blocking the pores so these lobe
deposits are commonly called sieve deposits
• These become progressively coarser towards the front of
the lobe, where gravel accumulates.
• Sieve deposits are normally proximal/ upper mid-fan
deposits.
Schematic
profile of a
sieve lobe
deposit
Mud Flow deposits on alluvial fans
• Where the debris flow is primarily fine
particles
• Forms restricted narrow lobes like debris
flows
• Mudflows that are more fluid can form
enormous sheetflood deposits (>10km/h)
• Very fast moving, very dangerous
deposits.
Typical depositional structure in
alluvial fans
• Require rapid uplift: commonly found in
– Rapidly downdropping grabens
– Foreland basins
– Strike-slip basins
• Typical profile:
– Mixture of unsorted debris flows
– Stream channel conglomerates (fanglomerates)
– Cross-bedded sandstones
– Sieve deposits
– Commonly coarsen up in the stratigraphic record
• Sequence:
– Cross-bedded ssts of distal fan at base
– Overlain by coarser proximal fan deposits as uplift continues
– Thin fining up sequence of fan decay on top
Can be very thick:
9000m of fanglomerates
at margin of San Andreas
Fault.
Fluvial Sedimentary
Environments

Braided River Systems


Basic features
• High discharge of water/ high sediment load /
high topographic gradient
• Network of low sinuosity channels
• Often originate on alluvial fans: rapid erosion and
little vegetation to stop run-off
• Rapid erosion
– channels quickly become choked with sediment
– Almost as soon as channel is scoured, it is infilled
– So much sediment can fill the channel that it pokes out
of the surface: gravel bar (may become vegetated)
– Rapid divergence of channels due to gravel bars
Braided river channels
• Generally broad and shallow channels
• Where sand grade dominates: commonly floored
by dunes
• Sand bars and large dunes (straight crested)
divide the stream into smaller channels
• Sand bars and dunes are exposed at low
discharge levels
• Can have smaller ripples and dune developed
on them at this stage
• The dunes and bars migrate downstream and
alter the positions of the channels
• In coarse grained braided systems:
• Commonly have flat bedded imbricated
gravel channel deposits
– These usually have thin, rippled and dune
sandstone tops (bar top sandstones)
• Fine grained deposits are poorly
developed (only in abandoned channels)
• Braided systems usually aggrade, but can
migrate laterally
Dominant components of braided
facies
• Normally dominated by channel and bar facies with
tabular, planar bedding (downstream migration of bars
and dunes)
• Very little fine grained sediment
• No overall fining up motif
• Some trough cross bedding may be present
• Internal erosion surfaces are common
• Channels may show some fining upwards
• Braided systems generate
– Elongate multistorey sand bodies with sheet geometry
(depending on lateral migration)
– Mudrocks are missing or rare
– Palaeocurrents are unidirectional with low dispersion
Fluvial Sedimentary
Environments

Meandering Stream Facies


Meandering streams
• Confined flow: Possess distinct channel &
overbank subenvironments
• High sinuosity meandering streams develop in
regions of low discharge and low topographic
gradient.
• Associated vegetation inhibits widespread
erosion and limits sediment supply.
• Produced by confined flow with periodic overflow
of banks
• The typical succession and general pattern of
sedimentation is shown in the following diagram:
• The Channel
– Formed by lateral movement erosion and deposition
– generally has large dune structures on its floor
– Often has coarse channel lag deposit
– Generates a fining up motif with point bar above lag
– Often contains mud pellets from river bank
• The Point Bar
– Dunes also occur on lower part of point bars
– These produce trough cross beds (compare with braided)
– Flat bedded sands of upper flow regime may also occur on the
point bar
– in the uppermost part, rippled sands produce cross laminations
and mud drapes
Gravel deposited in a channel
Graded Bedding in Fluvial Deposit
• Alluvial Ridges
– Produced by migration: erosion and deposition of point bar
produces a region higher than the rest of the alluvial plain.
• Levees
– are built up from fine sands and silts that are deposited during
river high stages
• Crevasse channels
– can be cut through the channel bank to bring coarser sands onto
the floodplain in crevasse splays
– This produces thin sandstone/ siltstone interbedded deposits
• Overbank deposits
– Overbank flooding carries suspended fine material onto the
floodplain
– Often evidence of drying out
– Floodplains can also be sites of soil formation, marshes,
swamps, lakes…
Mudcracks formed in overbank
• Meandering streams may abandon
channels during their development.
– Form Oxbow lakes gradually filled with fine
grained sediment (clay plugs)
– These generally help to keep the river to its
alluvial ridge but occasionally the river
breaches these to build a new alluvial ridge
on the floodplain
• This process is known as avulsion
Meandering Stream Sedimentation
Patterns
• Generates a fining upwards succession
– through point bar migration
• Occasional floods smooth off the point bar to
form epsilon cross bedding of the lateral
accretion surface
– Always dips normal to palaeoflow direction
• Thick floodplain deposits with channel point bar
sandstones characterize the meandering
environment
• Point bars may be connected to each other or
may be separated by floodplain silts.
Fining up
in a fluvial
system
Comparison: Meandering and Braided Rivers

Alluvial Island NO YES


Bars formed
Channel sinuosity HIGH LOW

Sediment cross Deep but Narrow Shallow but Wide


section
Channel cross Mud & Silt mainly Sand and gravel
section at margins at margins
Predominant Mud and silt Sand and gravel
sediment load

Load transport Suspended Bedload


Desert Sedimentary
Environments
Aeolian sands, playas &
ephemeral lakes/ streams
• Arid deserts: 20° - 30° latitude in areas of constant high
pressure or rain shadow (mountains)
• Wind less efficient: coarser material left as deflation lag
or desert pavement, sand/ finer material transported.
• Desertic environments are NOT just sand dunes: a
series of subenvironments exist.
• Desert character depends upon balance between
– wind strength (can exceed 190kph),
– rate of sediment supply
– effectiveness of vegetation binding.
• Arid climate: particles are weathered in upland regions and
move to lowland regions in ephemeral streams, which
pass through wadis.
• Aeolian deposits will be developed in a relatively arid
setting where there is more sand being transported into the
system than is leaving it.
• Particles deposited in lowlands coalesce into sand seas or
ergs.
• Ripples and dunes build up and migrate across the ergs
(and the ergs themselves move) unless the sand is fixed by
vegetation (savannah).
• Sand systems will eventually reach the sea (longest
route=5000km).
• Particles move long distances, hence sphericity and
roundness.
• Remember: sand can move uphill, unlike water.
High winds & Low Sediment Supply
• Rock & Gravel Pavements
– Finer grains (clay and silt grades) are transported in
suspension as red dust storms, sometimes for 1000’s
km before they settle from the air
• Where supply of sediment does not match the
rate of erosion,
– the sand may be removed down to the damp water-
table.
– This deflation can give a very distinctive planar
erosion surface in aeolian deposits.
– Sand transport will resume when more sediment is
supplied or the water-table drops still further.
Bedforms common in deserts
• Dunes, ripples…
• Cross-bedding (very large scale)
• Evaporites common in dried out Playa
lakes (interdune)
• Reddening of sediments common.
• Most importantly: aeolian sands are
marked by definite truncation surfaces
Saltating Sand
Big Dunes
• No limit on the overlying fluid so the dune
size is limited only by wind strength.
• Each cross set can be up to 35m thick with
foresets dipping 20-35° (steeper than
water lain deposits)
• Cross beds are generally long sweeping
features with asymptotic bases
Barchan Dunes
Aeolian Cross-bedding
Dune structures
• Low amplitude wind ripples can migrate up
the lee faces of aeolian dunes: not found
in fluvial systems.
Modern Wind Ripples
Ephemeral Streams & Lakes
• Between dunes
• Thin mudstones with rain pits and
dessication features: ephemeral lakes
• No regulr progression between dunes and
interdune deposits.
• Ephemeral lake formation often a random
process
• Low, flat "interdune" areas lie between
the crescentic dunes.
• Playa Lakes: commonly fine grained
lacustrine style deposits in the interdune
areas. Often dry out: evaporitic.
Recognizing aeolian systems
• Roundness, sphericity
• High-angle cross beds
• Very thick cross bed units
• Reddened
• Interdune deposits of muds and evaporites
• Very texturally and mineralogically mature
sediments
Fossils in the desert
• Commonly reptile/ dinosaur trackways.
Shoreline Deposition
What governs the depositional style?
• Rate of water discharge from rivers
• Rate of sediment influx from rivers
• Tidal regime and action of waves
• Larger scale marine currents
• Climate and vegetation
• Geometry of shelf slope/ marine basin
• Relative movements of land and sea, rate of
marine basin subsidence

• Modern shorelines: some erosional/ some


depositional.
Depositional Shorelines
• Interplay between sediment supply from land
and ability of marine processes to remove it.
• Produces a range of shoreline types from
sediment dominated to marine process
dominated.
• Consequence of this interplay: Shoreline Shape
• Low weight shorelines: Deltas built up
• Linear Shorelines: Barrier Islands and lagoons.
• Essential to distinguish between these in the
record.
River Mouth Flow Behaviour
• Water + Sediment in river enters the sea
or lake: 3 possibilities
• 1. Inflow more dense: turbidity current
deposits submarine fan
• 2. Equal densities: sediment dispersed
radially into a narrow zone: gilbert delta
• 3. Inflow less dense: Build up of sediment
due to deceleration: Deltas Build

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