Sedimentation Mechanisms

• Deposition by water, wind or ice (or gravity)

• Alluvial
• River deposits (fluvial)
• Deltaic, shallow marine
• Deep marine (turbidites)
• Wind laid deposits (aeolian)
• Lake deposits (lacustrine)
• Ice related deposits (glacial)
• Growth in position by organic processes
• Platform carbonates
• Coral reefs
• Precipitation from solution
• salt
• gypsum
• anhydrite
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 The Clastic World

lake alluvial
fans
braided
river
beach
forest meandering
swamp barriers
river shelf
sands

shallow delta deep marine

tidal marine
flat
margin & slope

Governed by: deep marine

fans
Gravity
Climate
Provenance
Sediment supply
Subsidence and (eustatic) sea level changes
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 Alluvial fan

Badwater fan, California

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 Rivers
Meandering river Braided river

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 Braided rivers

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 Meandering river

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 Fluvial Genetic Units

Point bars

Chute Oxbow
lake

Crevasse
splay

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 Meandering River
Point Bar Deposit & Oxbow lake
Kanuti river Alaska

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 Meandering River System
Sand

congl.
Gamma

med.
mud
fine
crs.
0 Ray 75 150
(API)
a
5
b 3
6
c 4
1

c
6
b
1
a 2 1b 1

c
1 7
6
b
1 6 b
5
c
5 1c

1b b
a 5
6 5c

3 a
1

a
1
Vert. scale: approx 1:200 Vert. scale: approx 1:200

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 Meandering river systems
Avulsion

Clay
plugs

Alluvial
New fan
meander breccias
belt

Meander belt built

up above floodplain
Vertical accretion
deposits
Meandering stream deposits showing linear sand bodies oriented down the
depositional slope. These porous facies are laid down by the meander belts, and
are enclosed within impermeable floodplain shales.
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 Main Deltaic Environments
CONTINENTAL

COASTAL

SHELF DEEP MARINE

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 Wave-Dominated Delta System

Barrier Sands
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 Niger Delta

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 River-Dominated Delta

Mississippi delta
(bird-foot delta)

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 Wave-Dominated Delta System

Nile Delta
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 Tidal Delta

Lena Delta (Siberia) Ganges Delta (Bangladesh)

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 Lower to Upper Shoreface SandsLower Shoreface
Upper Shoreface Offshore

Fair weather wave base ( FWWB)

5-10 m
Storm weather wave base ( SWWB)
15-25 m

Cliff ~ 8 m

Thin bedded sandy

heterolithics, 45 cm core
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 Shoreface Sands

Hummocky Cross-Stratification

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 Shoreface Deposits - Book Cliffs,
Price Utah

Shoreface deposits showing lateral continuity (ca. 5 kms)

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 Log response & resolution in
Lower shoreface thin beds

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 Thin-bedded Heterolithics

Champion 204 Core - UV Light

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 Mouth bar

Mvoti Estuary Kwazulu-Natal

by Andrew Cooper
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 Barrier bar

Mvoti Estuary Kwazulu-Natal

by Andrew Cooper
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 Distributary channels

Ganges Delta (Bangladesh)

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 Distributary Channel Sand

12m

Small-scale, single storey distributary channel sand - East Kentucky

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 Incised Valley Depositional
Sequence

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 Sediment movement

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 Deep Marine - Turbidite Reservoirs
Depositional Overview
• Re-deposition of sediments in deep water
• Sequence of Major Events
10-100 km

Delta Canyon Slope channel

Channel levee

Fan lobe
Shelf
Fan
Debris slump, slide Fan channel(s)

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 Benin-major

500 ms
2 km

Indus Fan
500 ms

2 km
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 Channel Heterogeneity

Turbidites in the Ainsa basin (Southern Pyrenees)

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 Aeolian Deposits
– tank of sand ?

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 Desert environment

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 Linear Draa Namibia

Stellar Draa

Interdune (flooded)

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 Interdune Sabkha
Areas

interdune

Tidal flood surface, and associated sedimentary

structures, Guerrero Negro, Mexico.
Photo courtesy Steven G. Fryberger.

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 Carbonate Environments

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 Carbonates

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 What can I see when I look at a
carbonate rock?

Grain

Cement

Pore

Matrix
(lime mud)

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 Carbonate producing organisms:
evolution trough time

Mln Years
360 318 300 250 200 145 65 0
Miss Penn. Permian Triassic Jurassic Cretaceous Cenozoic
Calcareous Algae
Bryozoa
Tubiphytes Foraminifera
Phylloid Algae Sponges
Stromatoporoids
Corals
Rudists

After James, 1983

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