Depositional environments

Sedimentary rocks are formed by 5 processes, there are erosion, weathering, transport, deposition,
and diagenesis process (Boggs, 1991). These 5 processes with 4 types of rocks make up a cycle that is
known as sedimentary cycle. The properties of sedimentary rocks such as sediment textures and
structures, are formed by chemical, physics and biological processes. Depositional process and the
properties of rock has really close genetic relationship. In sedimentology, determining the
depositional environments from the properties of sediment or sedimentary rocks is the main purpose
and focus. Thus, depositional environments are important and essential not just in sedimentology, but
also in other geological disiplines, such as stratigraphy. To gain the depositional environment, we
need to do environmental analysis. Environmental analysis is based on properties of rocks that have
environmental significances, which are sediment structures, textures, fossils and sedimentary facies
associations. From those informations, we can construct the facies model that’s a general summary of
the characteristics of certain depositional system. Then, from the characteristic depositional system,
we can know the depositional environments of sediment or sedimentary rock.

Contents
1 Definition of Depositional Environments
2 Terrestrial (Continental) Environments
3 Fluvial Systems
4 Alluvial Fan and Its Classification
5 Characteristics of Alluvial Fan
6 River Systems
7 Sediment Transport Processes in Rivers
7.1 Channel Transport
7.2 Floodplain Deposition
7.3 Characteristics of Fluvial Deposits
8 Eolian Desert Systems
9 Transport dan Depositional Processes in Desert Systems
10 Dunes
11 Interdune
12 Sheet Sands
13 Lacustrine Systems
14 Principal Kinds of Lakes
15 Factors Controlling Lake Sedimentations
15.1 Physical Processes
15.2 Chemical Processes
15.3 Biological Processes
16 Glacial Systems
17 Environmental Setting
18 Marginal Marine
19 Deltaic System
20 Delta Classification and Sedimentation Processes
21 Vertical Succession of Deltaic System
22 Beach And Barrier Island
22.1 Beaches
22.2 Depositional Processes
22.3 Barrier Island Systems
23 Estuarine
23.1 Wave Dominated Estuary
23.2 Tide Dominated Estuaries
23.3 Mixed Wave and Tide Dominated
24 Lagoon
25 Tidal Flat
26 Deep-Sea System
27 Transportation And Deposition Processes
28 Principal Kinds Of Deep-Sea Sediment
28.1 Kind of deep-sea sediment : Hemipelagic Mud
28.2 Kind of deep-sea sediment : Turbidite
28.3 Kind of deep-sea sediment : Contourite
29 Sources
30 References
Definition of Depositional Environments

Schematic diagram showing types of depositional environment. From wikimedia commons.

Depositional environment is part of earth surface that has certain chemical, biology, and physics
characteristics where sediments are laid on. There are 3 kinds of depositional environments, they are
continental, marginal marine, and marine environments.[1] Each environments have certain
characteristic which make each of them different than others. And different depositional
environment, will have different structure and texture of sediments.

Terrestrial (Continental) Environments

There are 4 major kinds of terrestrial environments, they are fluvial, desert, lacustrine, and glacial.
Fluvial environment is close-connected to the activity of river and also to alluvial plain. Desert
environment is close-connected to the role of wind as the agent of transportation and sedimentation.
Lacustrine sediments form in lake and glacial sediments form in ice- covered mountain or slope. Each
kinds of terrestrial environments will be explaned more below :

Fluvial Systems
Fluvial deposits, also known as alluvial deposits, involves sediments that are formed by activities of
river, stream, and associated with gravity flow process. There are 2 kinds of environmental settings
from fluvial deposits, which are alluvial fan and river.[1]

Alluvial Fan and Its Classification

Alluvial deposits has gross – cone-like shape and form a convex-up construction in cross section.
These deposits consist of abundant gravel-sand detritus on mostly fairly steep depositional slope.
They are poorly sorted and are common from the base of mountain range with many sediment
supplies. Based on depositional processes, there are 2 kinds of alluvial fans, debris-flow-dominated
fans and stream-flow-dominated fans. As the flow of sediments from high relief area (mountain
range) comes to a lower area, they are free to spread out with help of gravity. Debris-flow deposits
are poorly sorted with the lack of sediment structure, except the reverse graded bedding in their
basal parts. They contain various sizes of sediment, and mostly impermeable and nonporous because
of the high amount of muddy matrix.

There is also mudflow which is similar to debris flow but mostly contains finer size of sediments than
debris flow. Debris flow is also associated with landslide, the landslide is commonly as the source of
sediments for debris flow. Stream-flow processes are the principal transport mechanism of stream-
flow dominated fans. There are sheetflood and incised channel flow. Sheetflood is a broad expanse of
unconfined , sediment-laden runoff water moving downslope , commonly produced by catastrophic
discharge. And incised-channel flow takes place through channel, 1-4 m high, incised into the upper
fan.

Characteristics of Alluvial Fan

Alluvial fans are cone-shape and have many distributary channels. From the fanhead to the fantoe
and also from the cross section, it’s concave upward. Alluvial fan deposits are mostly gravel-sized
sediments and show down-fan decreased in grain size and bed thickness and an increase in sediment
sorting. The characteristics of debris-flow-dominated fan are the poorly sorted sediment with coarse
grain sizes and muddy matrix. But the stream-flow- dominated fans are more sheetlike deposits of
finer grain sizes and may have well sorted, laminated, cross-bedded or nearly strcutureless. Mostly,
alluvial fan deposits have strongly developed thickening and coarsening-upward succession, which are
caused by active fan progradation or outbuilding. But there are some fan deposits have thinning and
finning upward succession which are caused by fan retrogradation.

River Systems
According to Nichols[2] there are 3 major kinds of river based on the sinuosity channels, bars, and the
number of channels. They are meandering (single-channel), braided (multiple-channel), and
anastomosing rivers. Later on, meandering river will form a characteristic morphology, called oxbow
lake. In braided river, deposition of sand and gravel grain sizes happens around the channel.

Sediment Transport Processes in Rivers

Channel Transport
Channels are characterized by the presence of bars. Point bars are deposits that are placed on the
side of the river. Erosion happens on the outside of the bends and and deposition happens on the
opposite side forming point bars. The characteristics of point bars are cross-bedded structure or fining
upward structure. In braided rivers, braid bars are present in midchannel position. Furthermore, the
braid bars can form an island.

Floodplain Deposition
Floodplain are strips of land connected to the river and commonly formed in seasonal flood.
Floodplains can be present in braided and also meandering rivers. When the stream flood, overtop its
banks, deposition happens on natural levees. This deposition will happen again and again until
forming a land along the side of the bank, then formed floodplain. Natural-levee deposits form on the
concave or steep-bank side of meander loops which connected to the channel as a result of sudden
lost of competence. Their characteristics are the structure of stratified fine sands overlain by
laminated mud.

Characteristics of Fluvial Deposits

The common properties of fluvial deposits are, they consist of sand and gravel grain size and also mud
in floodplain deposits of meandering systems, and they have moderate to poor sorting. The deposits
of point bars and braid bars are generally fining upward grain size. The repeat of channel shifting and
bar migration of braided rivers produces vertical stacking of bar deposits can be separated by
mudstones. And the repeat of meander migration produces vertical stacking of fining upward
succession in meandering river deposits. Many sediment structures like planar and trough cross-
bedding, upper-flow-regime planar bedding, and ripple-marked surface occur in fluvial deposits. From
fluvial deposits, the paleocurrent can be determined especially in meandering rivers. And fluvial
deposits can also contain a variety of fossil hard parts of terrestrial animals and also trace fossils
which are created by both plants and animals.

Eolian Desert Systems

Desert areas cover about 20-25 percent of present land surface, within latitudinal belts about 10-30
degrees north and south of equator. These areas have dry climate with low air pressure and low
rainfall. These dry areas are dominated by wind activity and covered by sand. There are 3
subenvironments of this desert system, they are alluvial fan, ephemeral river which is present when
rain season, and ephemeral lake.[1]

Transport dan Depositional Processes in Desert Systems

As explaned before, desert areas are dominated by wind activity. In these areas, wind plays roles as
erosion and also transport agent. Wind is less effective erosion agent than water, but more effective
in become transport agent of finer sand sediments. Wind transports sediment almost in the same way
as water, with three ways : traction, saltation, and suspension. Effectively, wind transports sediment
by suspension. But coarser sediment can also transported by traction or saltation by wind with
unusual high velocity. This transport process will produce 3 kinds of deposits : dust (silt) deposits,
sometimes referred to loess which contains finer sediments from far distance; sand deposits, which is
well sorted; and lag deposits, which consist of gravel-size sediments that are too large to be
transported by the wind, so it forms deflation pavement.

From this transport, there are many structures and bedforms that are formed. Such as ripples, sand
dunes, and cross-beds. Bedforms that develop during wind transport range from ripple with 0,01 m
long and a height of few milimiters to dunes with 500-600 m long and 100 m of height. There’s also
draas which is gigantic bedform that has up to 5,5 km long and height of 400 m (Wilson, 1972; McKee,
1982). Environments of deserts are divided into 3 main subenvironments : dunes, interdune, and sand
sheet (Ahlbrandt and Fryberger, 1982).

Dunes
Dunes are formed by wind deposition and transport, then the sediments accumulate in a variety of
dune forms. Dune morphology is determined by the availability of sand, wind intensity, and the
variability of wind directions (Lancaster, 1999; Pye and Tsoar, 1990). Dune consists of well sorted and
well rounded grains, mostly quartz rich , but also heavy minerals and rock fragments are present.
Coastal dune consists of many ooids , skeletal fragments, and other carbonate grains. Eolian dune is
characterized by the presence of large cross bedding.

Interdune
Interdune areas occur between dunes and bounded by dunes or other eolian deposits such as sand
sheets.[1] Interdunes may be formed by erosion or deposition. Erosional interdunes are present as
disconformity overlain by thin, discontinuous, winnowed lag deposits. All interdunes deposits are
characterized by low angle stratification (<~10°). Dry interdunes or interdunes that are wet
occasionally are more common than wet interdunes. Dry interdunes have ripple-related wind-
transport-processes, grainfall in the wind shadow in the lee of dunes, or sandflow from adjacent
dunes. These deposits are coarse, bimodal, poorly sorted, and poorly laminated layers. Wet interdune
deposits are finer than the dry interdunes deposits. They are usually in silt or clay size which are
trapped by semipermanent bodies of water. This deposits contain freshwater organisms such as
pelecypod, gastropod, diatom and ostracod. Evaporite interdunes occur where drying of shallow
ephemeral lakes or evaporation of damp surface causes precipitation of carbonate minerals: gypsum
or anhydrite. This sediments may be characterized by desiccation cracks, raindrop imprints, ,
evaporite layers, and pseudomorphs.

Sheet Sands
Sheet sands are flat to gently undulating bodies of sand that commonly surround dune fields.[1] They
are typically low to moderate dipping (0°-20°) cross stratification. This deposits consist of gently
dipping, curved or irregular surfaces of erosion with bioturbation traces from insects and plants ,
poorly laminated, thin laye of coarse sand intercalated with fine sand and occasional intercalations of
high-angle eolian deposits(Ahbrandt and Fryberger, 1982; Korucek and Nelson, 1986; Schwan, 1988).
Lacustrine Systems
1-2 percent of the earth's surface is covered by lake. Lake deposits are formed by complex chemical,
physical, and biological processes. The physical processes are from rivers, waves, streams, and
deposition. The chemical processes are from the chemical deposition, and the biology processes are
from biological product and organic deposits. The basin of lake can be formed by many mechanisms,
such as tectonic movements (rifting, faulting), glacial processes (ice scouring, ice damming, moraine
damming), landslide or other mass movements, volcanic activity, deflation, and fluvial activity.

Modern lakes are about a few tens of square meters to ten of thousands of square kilometers. There
are 4 variables that determine the lake size and characters, they are basin- floor depth, sill height,
water supply, and sediment supply.

Principal Kinds of Lakes

Based on mechanism of deposition, there are 2 kind of lakes, open lakes and closed lakes. Open lakes
have outflow of water and a stable shoreline. The deposits are dominated by silisiclastic materials
from river, that are deposited along the side of the lake near the river. Closed lakes do not have
outflow and have fluctuating shorelines which are controlled by seasonal flood. The deposits are
dominated by carbonate mud, silt, and sand which developed together with evaporite sediments,
stromatolites, and travertine.

Factors Controlling Lake Sedimentations

Physical Processes
Physical processes are about sediment transport and deposition include wind, river inflow, and
atmorpheric heating. Wind creates waves and currents; river inflow may transport fine sediments far
into the lake, also may transport sediment by turbidity current and density underflows to the basin.
So, there are many depositional mechanisms that operate in lakes.

Chemical Processes
In closed lakes, deposition of chemically processed sediments are common. There are many ions that
are abundant in lake, but mostly carbonates are the most present. The evaporite deposits contain
many evaporite minerals, such as gypsum, anhydrite, halite, and sylvite. The pH of lake is about 6 to 9,
but it can become acidic in some volcanic lakes, and more alkaline in closed desert lakes.

Biological Processes
Many kinds of organisms live in lakes and when they die, their skeletons will be preserved in lake
sediments. Siliceous diatoms are common in lake deposits. But there are also pelecypods, gastropods,
calcareous algae, and ostracods that give contribution of carbonate materials in lake sediments.

Glacial Systems
Glaciers cover about 10 percent of earth’s surface in high latitude regions. There are about 86 percent
of total glaciers on Antartica, about 11 percent on Greenland, and the rest is on Iceland, Baffin Island,
and Spitsbergen. Glacial environment exists in high latitude areas at all elevations and at low latitude
areas where snow doesn’t melt in summer.

Environmental Setting
There are 4 zones : the basal (subglacial zone) which influenced by contact with the bed, the
supraglacial zone which is the upper surface of the glacier, the ice-contact zone around the margin of
glacier, and the englacial zone within the glacial interior.[1] Proglacial environment is influenced by
melting ice but not with direct contact with ice, this environment includes glaciofluvial,
glaciolacustrine, and glaciomarine settings. The periglacial environment is the wider area and
overlapping the proglacial environment. The basal zone is the area where erosion and plucking of
underlying bed happens. The supraglacial zone and ice-contact zone are zones of melting where
englacial debris carried by glacier accumulates as the glacier melts. The size of glacial environment
ranges in various sizes. There are valley glaciers, piedmont glaciers, and ice sheets which have
smallest to biggest size of glacial environments.
Marginal Marine
The Marginal Marine is located around the boundary between the continental and the marine
depositional realms. The Marginal Marine is dominated by wave, river and tidal processes. The
characteristics of Marginal Marine are high-energy waves and currents, although some lagoonal and
estuarine environments are dominated by quiet-water conditions. The depositional settings in
marginal marine sediment are delta, beach, and barrier island, estuarine, lagoonal, and tidal flat.

Deltaic System
Learning about Deltaic System is important because delta told as the host of petroleum, gasses, and
coals. Herodotus, a Greek philosopher, use the terms of Delta to describe a triangle shape of alluvial
plain in the mouth of Nile River. Nowadays, although Delta doesn’t form a perfect triangle, the term
Delta is still used to describe the subaerial or subaqueous deposition of fluvial processes in the body
of water. Generally, delta is formed by the deposition and sedimentation of materials that are
transported through the river in other body of water like sea. This process is called the constructive
process. Beside the constructive process, delta is also influenced by the destructive processes like
reworking and redistributing of sediment from marine system. The place in which the delta is formed
has three requirements. First, it has to have a large and active drainage system. Second, the tectonic
activity should be low. Last, it has to have a large supply of sediments.

Based on the sedimentation processes, the morphology of delta can be classified as Delta Plain, Delta
Front, and Prodelta.

Delta Classification and Sedimentation Processes

The characteristics of delta are influenced by many complex factors. These factors include:

Climate
Water
Sediment discharge
River mouth processes
Nearshore wave power
Tides
Nearshore current
Winds (Coleman, 1981 in Boggs[1])
Beside the factors mentioned above, there are also some morphological factors:

Slope of shelf
Rate of subsidence and other tectonic activity at depositional site
Geometry of depositional basin
Delta classification on the basis of delta-front regime (Galloway, 1975) appears to be favored by most
geologists. Deltas are classified thus as (1) fluvial-dominated, (2) tide-dominated, or (3) wave-
dominated.

Vertical Succession of Deltaic System

Deltaic system is formed by the process of progradation. This process is causing fining- upward-
succession in sedimentation record.

Beach And Barrier Island

The Beach and Barrier Island are developed on wave-dominated coast where tidal range is small to
intermediate. The Beach and Barrier Island are dominated by sea processes and sand transportation
by wind with small scale. The Beach and Barrier Island can become one if:[1]

A beach associated with the mainland.

A system coastal hills that wider will produce coastal plain.
The barrier island separates partially or completely from mainland by lagoon and marsh.
Beaches
The Beach environment can be divided into several zones :
The Backshore, which extends landward from the beach berm above high tide level and commonly
includes back-beach dune deposits.
The Foreshore, called littoral zone or zone between high tide level to low tide level.
The Shoreface, called nearshore, located on low tide level to transition zone between beach and
sediment on shelf.
Depositional Processes
Erosion, sediment transport, and depositional processes on coast have been studied by engineers
interested in coastal processes. Beaches will develop on wave dominated coast where tidal range is
small. Beaches associated with wave related processes, which include wave swash, storm waves, and
nearshore currents (longshore and rip currents). The cross sand can found on the central part of
beach deposit. The main zone of shoreface sediment are multidirectional trough cross-bed sets and
trace fossils, such as Skolithos.

Barrier Island Systems

The Barrier Island setting is composite of three separate environments. There are the sandy barrier-
island chain itself (the subtidal to subaerial barrier-beach complex), the enclosed lagoon, estuary, or
marsh behind it (the back-barrier, subtidal-intertidal region), and the channels that cut through the
barrier and connect the back-barrier lagoon to the open sea (the subtidal-intertidal delta and inlet-
channel complex).[1] Depositional processes and sediment transport are similar with the mainland
beaches.

Figure 1. Barrier Island Systems (Derived from Boggs

Estuarine
Estuarine is the liquid part and has funnel shape. The estuarine associated with the ocean. Based on
dominant hydrologic characteristics and the kinds of sediment and sediment bodies, it divided into
wave dominated, tide dominated, or mixed wave and tide dominated (Dalrymple, Zaitlin, and Boyd,
1992).

Wave Dominated Estuary

High wave occur in the mouth of estuary. Tidal influence does not significantly affect the estuary.
Sediment tend to move along the beach and in the beach to the mouth of estuary, which spit
subaerial is formed.

Figure 3. Wave Dominated Estuary (top) and Tidal Dominated Estuary (bottom)
Tide Dominated Estuaries
Tide Dominated Estuaries form in macrotidal beach. The tidal energy is greater than the wave energy.
The deposits are characterized by ripple mark structure, cross bedding, and flaser. The estuarine
deposits contain brackish water fauna, such as shell, pelecypoda and gastropods.

Mixed Wave and Tide Dominated

There are several estuaries have characteristics intermediate between wave-dominated and tidal-
dominated. The location example of mixed wave and tide dominated are St.Lawrence River, Canada.

Lagoon
Lagoonal is shallow morphological that containing water and the location is near with sea. Lagoonal
has terrestrial and marine parts. Lagoonal is separated from terrestrial enviroment by reef, barrier
island, sandbank, and spit. The lagoonal has low energy, so sediment that dominant is fine grained
sediment in lagoonal.

Based on geomorphological and water circulation with the ocean, lagoonal consists three types :

Choked, occurs in along coast with high wave energy and drift.
Restricted, has two or more entrance channels or inlets, has good water circulation because of tidal
circulation, and influenced by wind.
Leaky, occurs in along coast where tidal currents are important factor in sediment transport.

Tidal Flat
The Tidal Flat is transition environment that still affected by tide. The tidal flat divided into 3 zones,
supratidal, intertidal, and subtidal.

Supratidal Zone, the zone is influenced by extreme tides. This zone will evaporation and produce
crystal salt. This zone also called Sabkha.
Intertidal Zone, located on between high and low tide level. This zone occurs the bedload and
suspension load transportation.
Subtidal Zone, is under the water when low tide level. Tide influence in this environment is very
important especially at tidal channels, where bedload transport and deposition are dominant.
Sediment characteristics of tidal flat is the dominant of sand in shallow subtidal zone, intertidal
bottom zone, and channel. There is cross bedding sand in channel and abundance of mud in
supratidal zone.

Deep-Sea System
Deep-sea system are the widest sedimentation area in the world. Despite being the widest area, it’s
not well explored because it’s rarely exposed in the surface like the shallow marine , fluvial, delta , or
other sedimentation area. This system started from the shelf to the deep-sea basin. Continental shelf
is a morphology with slope about 2o-4o. The transportation processes happen in the slope are
variative.

Continental rise is a plain that goes all the way to the deep-sea and form a marine-fan. It is located
under the continental slope.

Transportation And Deposition Processes

Sedimentation processes in deep-sea takes a long time. Beside transportation by wind, sediment in
the deep-sea should be transported by shelf. There are many kind of transportation by shelf, include,
creep, gliding/sliding, and slumping.

Principal Kinds Of Deep-Sea Sediment

Kind of deep-sea sediment : Hemipelagic Mud
Hemipelagic mud deposited on very low current. It is mostly found in the basin slope in front of
arc.Generally it has the color of grey to green or green to reddish brown. It has mud to shale size.
Beside formed from the remains of living things, hemipelagic mud also formed of soft terrigenous
quartz, fieldspar mika, mineral lempung, and vilcanin material. Hemipelagic mud can also be found in
the back-arc basin, which is formed by the activities of planktonic organism.

Kind of deep-sea sediment : Turbidite

Turbidite is formed in the deep marine fan, shallow-marine canyon, and deeper environtment. It
consist of sand, sandy shale , and gavelly sand. It alternates with the pelagic mud and has normal
gradation. It is drawn in the Bouma Sequence. It has the structure of sole mark in general. Beside
turbidite sandy deposit, mud also appeared in some modern deep-sea sediment. The turbidite is
formed in various tectonic settings, active or passive.
Kind of deep-sea sediment : Contourite
Contourite shows inverse-grading or coarsening upward structure with grain size from silt to sand and
then followed by the opposite facies (fining upward). Contourite that consist a lot of mud has a
homogen composition, a bad layer and shows the intensive bioturbation. Whereas contourite that
consist a lot of silt shows bioturbation and mottled. Last, contourite that consist a lot of sand has a
thin and random layers, fine grains, bioturbation, and shows cross-lamination.

5. Hemipelagic Deposits

Hemipelagites are fine-grained sediments, typically muds and sandy muds, which comprise mixtures
of terrigenous and biogenic material, of which the terrigenous component is silt-rich. They are
deposited by a combination of vertical settling and very slow lateral advection. Hemipelagites are one
of the principal marine sediment types covering large tracts of continental margins worldwide and
forming the ‘background’ facies of many deep-water successions. Many black-shale source rocks and
organic-rich shale–gas reservoirs are largely of hemipelagic origin, although other processes may also
be involved in the deposition of black shales.