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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