STRATIGRAPHY

GEO132

INTRODUCTION
 In stratigraphy the scale are much larger than hand specimens. Scales are outcrops
and large areas of land surfaces called “field areas”
 Stratigraphy is the study of stratified rocks
 The branch of Geology that deals with the description, correlation, and
interpretation of stratified sediments and stratified rocks on and in the Earth

STRATIFICATION
 Strata can range from a sub millimeter thickness to many meters
 How is stratification produced?
o Variations in slow and continuous depositional processes with time due to slow
changes in environmental conditions
o Brief and often catastrophic depositional events that punctuate slow
“background” sedimentation. This tends to produce more striking and usually
thicker strata.

DEPOSITION
 Environments
o Marine
o Fluvial
o Lacustrine
o Glacial
o Eolian
 Thick sediment successions can be deposited in areas that undergo substantial
subsidence and may escape erosion once more for geologically long periods of
time
 Main events responsible for beds are:
o Storms at sea
o River floods
o Sediment gravity flows in the ocean and in large lakes
 Turbidity Currents:
 Most important sediment gravity flow
 Results in a turbidite that exhibits normal grading
 o Other examples:
 Sand bed deposited on a continental shelf by a storm
 Gravel bed deposited on a braided stream bed due to flood
 Thin lamina of clay deposited in deep ocean due to change in depositional
conditions
 Basalt flows
 Ash bed due to volcanic eruption
o How do we know about depositional processes?
 Modern and Ancient environments are distinctly different
 Note that a stratum may not have a great lateral extent. This may change gradually
into another stratum or disappear by pinching out or wedging out. Distances can
vary from a few meters to hundreds of kilometers

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
 Prior to 1800s
o The perception regarding Earth’s history was flood-dominated (Catastrophism
and Neptunism)
o Nicolaus Steno (1638-1686)
 Born Niels Stensen
 Father of Stratigraphy
 Recognize the significance of fossils and the true nature of strata
o STENO’S LAWS:
 Superposition
 Younger rocks are deposited on older rocks
 Original Horizontalitity
 Strata were close to being horizontal when they were originally
deposited
 Original Lateral Continuity
 Strata were originally laterally extensive relative to their thickness
when they were deposited
 Early 1800s
o William Smith (England) & George Cuvier (France)
 Used faunal succession in stratified rocks for mapping
 Law of Faunal Sucession:
 Distinct faunas succeed one another regularly in rocks
 Middle 1800s
o Darwin and Wallace’s study
  Early 1900s
o Walther’s Law of Facies

SUCCESSION OF STRATA
 The sequence of strata you would see in one big outcrop, or in a series of outcrop
in a small area is called a local section.
 A local section is a stack of strata in one dimension
 Deposition is usually non-uniform in both space and time for a given area as the
nature of deposition may change laterally at a given time and may change with
time at a given point
 Gradients of deposition in space and time are also non-uniform as at certain places
and times the changes are faster and more abrupt.
 The stack can be subdivided into rock units that show a high degree of internal
sameness/similarity compared with the rocks above and below it
 CONTACTS OF ROCK UNITS:
o Gradational (Continuous change)
o Gradational (Interbedding)
o Abrupt (Change in deposition)
o Abrupt (Erosional break)
 You should not expect to sea the exactly same beds in the neighboring local
sections
 The assumption of the times represented by contacts between rock units are the
same from section to section is wrong.
 Key Bed
o A unique bed in all sections such as a distinctive bed of volcanic ash and see
where it lies in the section relative to the rock-unit contacts
 Diachrony (Diachronous, adj.)
o The contacts between the sedimentary units cuts across the time surfaces.
o The nonparallelism of time surfaces and depositional units is called diachrony
 Walther’s Law of Facies
o The lateral distribution of facies on a depositional surface is the same as the
vertical distribution of these same facies in a vertical section through the
deposits
 Facies
o Distinctive kinds of sedimentary depositis
 Transgression
o Or Marine Transgression
  Advance of sea onto the land
o Leads to a transgressive succession
 Regression
o The sea level is falling and the shoreline is moving seaward
o Marine Regression

ROCK UNITS
 Formation
o Basic rock-stratigraphic unit
o A genetic unit of strata deposited under essentially uniform conditions or an
alternation of conditions. Boundaries are to be drawn at points in the section
where lithologic features change or where there are significant breaks in
continuity of sedimentation.