Sedimentology - Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam - Printed in The Netherlands

CLASSIFICATION AND ORIGIN OF FLASER AND LENTICULAR

BEDDING

HANS-ERICH REINECK AND FRIEDRICH WUNDERLICH

Forschungsanstalt fur Meeres-Geologie und Meeres-Biologie “Senekenberg”, Wilhelmshaven

(Germany)

(Received August 18, 1968)

SUMMARY

Ripple, flaser and lenticular bedding are well known, but for describing
profiles, they are not sufficiently defined and subdivided. It is, therefore, the intent
of the following text to present such a definition and classification.
The classification contains the following main bedding types and inter-
mediary types (Fig. 1):

cross bedding with flasers

flaserfiihrende Rippelschichten

simple
einfoch

bifurcated
vergabelte
flaser bedding
Flaserschwhten
wavy
wellig

bifurcated wavy
vergabelte wellige

wavy bedding
well& Wechselschichten

with thick lenses

Dicklinsenschichten

lenticular bedding
connected
offen
(with flat lenses
Flachlinsensch.

Linsenschk:hten
with thick lenses
/Dicklinsenschichten
single
geschlossen
\with flat lenses
Flachlinsenxh

Fig. 1 . The division of flaser and lenticular bedding. (black = mud or shale, white - sand
or sandstone).

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 100 H.-E. REINECK AND F. WUNDERLICH

( I ) Cross-bedding with flasers.

(2) Flaser bedding, subdivided in: (a) simple flaser bedding; (b) bifurcated
flaser bedding; (c) wavy flaser bedding; ( d ) bifurcated wavy flaser bedding.
(3) Wavy bedding.
( 4 ) Lenticular bedding with thick or flat lenses, subdivided in: (a) contin-
uous lenticular bedding (with connected lenses); (b) broken lenticular bedding
(with single lenses).

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of the classification proposed here should be to present an

extensive, differentiated division of the relevant bedding types. But on the same
time it should be simple enough for use in the field without measurements.
The bedding types consist of ripples or cross-bedding interbedded with
mud. The mud lies on more or less preserved ripples and accordingly copies the
wavy form of the ripples. Strictly speaking, the bedding is made up of not just
one layer but of two different types of layers repeated several times.

DEFINITION

An assignment in the following classification is possible only when a section

is made perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the ripples. Slicing parallel to
the ripple axis, in respect to ripples with straight crests, yields the picture of
simple sand-mud alternation.

Cross-bedding with frusers

Cross-beds are sandy beds that are built from the foreset laminae of ripples.
When single mud flasers are interposed in these ripple-beds, the bedding type is
identified as cross-bedding with flasers.

Flaser bedding'
Cross-bedding with numerous intercalated mud flasers (Fig.2) is identified
as flaser bedding. The variation of flasers offers a possibility for further break-
down:
Simple jlaser bedding. The mud flasers have neither side nor vertical contact
with one another. They are concave when seen from above. The mud has been
either primarily deposited only in the ripple troughs, or in the trough and on
the ripple crest. The mud on the crests has then been eroded by the next current.

1 Flaser (German) = vein in wood or rock.

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FLASER AND LENTICULAR BEDDING 101

Fig. 2. Flaser bedding. On the surface, the mud is lying in the troughs of ripples. This
mud will be called “flaser” when preserved by overlying sand. a: flaser bedding formed from
current ripples with straight crests; b: flaser bedding formed from current ripples with curved
crests; c: flaser bedding formed from oscillation ripples.

Bifurcated flaser bedding. The flasers are frequently bifurcated. The bifurca-
tion results from the contact or partially exposed flasers of an earlier generation
and later sedimented flasers.

Wavy flaser bedding. The mud flasers of the wavy flaser bedding are concavely
bowed, namely where they fill ripple troughs, as well as convexly bowed where
they overlie ripple crests. But they fail to form continuous layers.

Bifurcated wavy flaser bedding. These beddings display the representative

characteristics of bifurcated flaser bedding and wavy flaser bedding: bifurcated,
concave and convex bowing.

Wavy bedding
The mud layers overlie ripple crests and more or less fill the ripple troughs
(Fig. 3), so that the surface of the mud layer only slightly follows the concave or
convex curvature of the underlying ripples. The thicker the mud, the less the form

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102 H.-E. REINECK AND F. WUNDERLICH

Fig. 3. Wavy bedding.

of the underlying ripples is traced on the surface of the mud.

When only one wavy mud layer is present, it may be recorded as a single
occurence and described as wavy mud layer. Only when there is a sequence of
many wavy mud layers in alternation with rippled sand it is identified as wavy
bedding. In contrast with flaser bedding, the ripples in wavy bedding are vertically
discontinuous.

Lenticular bedding
In lenticular bedding, the ripples or lenses are discontinuous not only in the
vertical but also more or less in the horizontal direction. When ripples are not
continuous in the horizontal direction, they are incomplete ripples (SHROCK,
1948, fig. 85).

Lenticular bedding with connected lenses: up to 75% of the ripples or lenses

are discontinuous in the horizontal and the vertical direction.

Lenticular bedding with single lenses: more than 75% of the ripples (lenses) are
discontinuous. In some cases, the lenses seem to float in the mud.
From the morphology of the lenses they can be divided into thick lenses and
flat lenses. Thick lenses have a length/height ratio < 20. Flat lenses have a

Sedimentology, 11 (1968)99-104
FLASER AND LENTICULAR BEDDING 103

Fig. 4. Lenticular bedding with thick connected lenses. Upper part with current ripples,
lower part with oscillation ripples.

length/height ratio 20. Therefore, lenticular bedding is subdivided into lenti-

cular bedding with connected thick or flat lenses and lenticular bedding with
single thick or flat lenses.

ORIGIN AND ENVIRONMENTAL DISTRIBUTION

The origin of these bedding types is related to the alternation of current or

wave action and slack water (REINECK,1960a, b).
Current or wave action forms sand into respectively, current, or oscillation
ripples. Sand can be moved by fraction or suspension, or the sand or silt can also
be accumulated as residual-sediment. Mud is deposited during slack water.
The preferred environments are areas where a change takes place between
slack water and water turbulence and where the corresponding sediments exist.
The main environments are subtidal-zones (REINECK, 1963; REINECK et al., 1968)
and intertidal-zones (HANTZSCHEL, 1936). In these two zones the genesis of these
bedding types is related to the tidal rhythm, i.e., to tidal currents and to tidal slack
water. Therefore, flaser and lenticular bedding here are types of so-called tidal
beddings.

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104 H.-1:. REINECK A N D F. WUNDERLICH

Fig. 5 . Lenticular bedding. Upper part with single flat lenses. Lower part with single
thick lenses. Some of them are oscillation ripples.

The ripples of the tidal-bedding are mostly current ripples, and the foresets
laminae are bipolar in the direction of the flood and ebb currents.
In lagoons and shallow lakes the ripples are for the most part asymmetrical
and symmetrical oscillation ripples. Also, lenticular bedding is described from the
marine delta front and from the lake bottom in front of developing small deltas
(COLEMAS, 1966), and in fossil sediments of sheet floods.

REFEREKCES

COLEMAN, J . M., 1966. Ecological changes in a massive fresh-water clay sequence. A m . Geol.
SOC.,16:159--174.
HANTZSCHEI., W., 1936. Die Schichtungsformen rezenter t'lachmeer-Ablagerung im Jade-Gebiet.
Senckenbergiana Lethaea. 18:316-356.
REINECK,H. E., 1960a. Uber Zeitlucken in rezenten Flachsee-Sedimenten. Geol. Rundschuu,
49:149 - 161.
REINECK,H. E , 1960b. Uber die Entstehung von Linsen- und Flaserschichten. Ahhandl. Deut.
Aknd. Wiss.Berlin, Kl. C'lieni. Geol. Biol., 3~369-374.
REINECK,H. E., 1963. Sedimentgefuge im Bereich der siidlichen Nordsee. Ahhandl. Senckenhcrg
Nuturforsch. Ges., 505:138 pp.
REINECK,H. E., DORIES, J.. GADOW,S. und HERTWECK, G., 1968. Sedimentologie, t'aunenzonie-
rung und Faziesabfolge vor der Ostkuste der inneren Deutschen Bucht. Senckenhergiana
Lethaea (in press).
SHROCK,R. R.. 1948. Sequence in Layered Rocks. McGraw-Hill, New York, N.Y., 507 pp.

Sedimentology, 11 (1968) 99-104