PRINCIPLES OF STRATIGRAPHY

GEOE214 REVIEW
By: Mohanad Abotaleb

2023/ 2024
GEOE 214
 Contents
About These notes................................................................................................................................................................... 4
How To Study Stratigraphy?................................................................................................................................................... 5
Week 1 “INTRODUCTION” ...................................................................................................................................................... 6
What's geology.................................................................................................................................................................... 6
What's Stratigraphy ............................................................................................................................................................ 6
Sedimentary Rocks .............................................................................................................................................................. 7
Stratigraphy is the art of detection ..................................................................................................................................... 8
Uniformitarianism ............................................................................................................................................................... 8
The subdivisions phases of stratigraphy ............................................................................................................................. 9
Value of Stratigraphy ........................................................................................................................................................ 10
Week 2 “Origin of Sediments & Surface Processes” ............................................................................................................. 11
Weathering processes....................................................................................................................................................... 12
Influence of the source rock ............................................................................................................................................. 15
Week 3 “Erosion and Transportation” .................................................................................................................................. 18
Transportation .................................................................................................................................................................. 18
Roundness & Sorting ......................................................................................................................................................... 31
DIAGENESIS & Lithification ............................................................................................................................................... 32
Week 4 “STRATIFICATION” ................................................................................................................................................... 33
Nature of stratification ..................................................................................................................................................... 33
Basis of stratification......................................................................................................................................................... 34
Attitude of stratification ................................................................................................................................................... 36
Special varieties of stratification ....................................................................................................................................... 37
Week 5 ‘‘Unconformities’’ .................................................................................................................................................... 41
Types of Unconformity ..................................................................................................................................................... 42
Significance of Unconformities ......................................................................................................................................... 47
Week 6 ‘‘DEPOSITIONAL ENVIRONMENTS’’.......................................................................................................................... 48
How Do We Recognize Ancient Depositional Environments? .......................................................................................... 48
MAKING INTERPRETATIONS .............................................................................................................................................. 48
ENVIRONMENTS OF DEPOSITION ..................................................................................................................................... 49
SEDIMENTARY DEPOSITIONAL ENVIRONMENTS .............................................................................................................. 50
Week 7 ‘‘Non-Marine Environments: Fluvial Environment "1" ............................................................................................ 51
(FLUVIAL ENVIRONMENTS) ............................................................................................................................................... 51
Week 8 ‘‘Non-Marine Environments: Fluvial Environment "2" ............................................................................................ 59
Week 9 ‘‘Non-Marine Environments: Fluvial Environment "3" ............................................................................................ 61
Week 10 ‘‘Non-Marine Environments: Desert Environment" .............................................................................................. 63
 DESERT ENVIRONMENT .................................................................................................................................................... 63
Deposits of desert environment ....................................................................................................................................... 64
Recognition of ancient desert deposits ............................................................................................................................ 67
Typical columnar section of desert environment ............................................................................................................. 68
Week 11 ‘‘Non-Marine Environments: Lake (Lacustrine) " .................................................................................................. 69
Lake (Lacustrine) Environment ......................................................................................................................................... 69
Classification of Lakes ....................................................................................................................................................... 69
Water supply ..................................................................................................................................................................... 71
Lake environments............................................................................................................................................................ 71
Lake Deposits Classification .............................................................................................................................................. 71
Lake Deposits Vs Shallow-Marine Deposits ...................................................................................................................... 74
Ancient Lake Deposits ....................................................................................................................................................... 75
Week 12 ‘‘Non-Marine Environments: Glacial " ................................................................................................................... 76
Glacial Environments ........................................................................................................................................................ 76
Environmental settings ..................................................................................................................................................... 77
Glacial Deposits ................................................................................................................................................................. 77
Evidence of glacial activity ................................................................................................................................................ 79
Glaciomarine Sedimentation ............................................................................................................................................ 80
Typical columnar section .................................................................................................................................................. 81
Week 13 ‘‘Marine Environments: Neritic (Continental-shelf)" ............................................................................................. 82
HYDROLOGICAL CYCLE ...................................................................................................................................................... 82
The difference between pure water and seawater .......................................................................................................... 82
MARINE ENVIRONMENTS ................................................................................................................................................. 84
Neritic Environments ........................................................................................................................................................ 86
Week 14 ‘‘Marine Environments: Oceanic" .......................................................................................................................... 93
Oceanic environments ...................................................................................................................................................... 93
Classification of Oceanic Sediments ................................................................................................................................. 93
Week 15 ‘‘Mixed Environments: Beach & Cliff-Shore" ....................................................................................................... 103
MIXED ENVIRONMENTS .................................................................................................................................................. 103
Environments Dominated by waves & longshore currents (Cliffed Shores, Beaches) ................................................... 105
Week 16 ‘‘Mixed Environments: Tidal flats" ....................................................................................................................... 109
Environments Dominated by Tides and tidal currents (1. Tidal flats) ............................................................................ 109
Week 17 ‘‘Mixed Environments: Shore-lagoons" ............................................................................................................... 115
Environments Dominated by Tides and tidal currents (2. Shore-lagoons) ..................................................................... 115
TRANSGRESSING and REGRESSING ................................................................................................................................. 118
Week 18 ‘‘Mixed Environments: Deltas" ............................................................................................................................ 121
MARINE DELTA ENVIRONMENTS .................................................................................................................................... 121
Week 19 ‘‘Mixed Environments: Organic reefs" ................................................................................................................. 125
Organic Reef Environments ............................................................................................................................................ 125
Week 20 ‘‘Facies & Facies change" ..................................................................................................................................... 128
FACIES ............................................................................................................................................................................. 128
FACIES CHANGE............................................................................................................................................................... 132
Rocking Our Geology Exam: Cheers to Success!............................................................................................................... 141
Fair Use Disclaimer ............................................................................................................................................................ 142
 About These notes
Hello fellow Geologists and aspiring Engineers!

As we venture into the fascinating realm of stratigraphy, I extend a warm welcome to my

study notes. Whether you’re a seasoned rock enthusiast or a fresh-faced sedimentary sleuth,
these notes are tailored to enhance your understanding of this captivating subject. Consider
them a thoughtful offering from your Egyptian colleague, crafted to guide you through this
semester’s stratigraphic adventures.

Studying stratigraphy can be akin to deciphering the Earth’s ancient diary—one layer at a
time. Remember that consistency and curiosity are your allies. So, take a moment to
breathe, channel your inner geoscientist, and let’s unravel the geological narratives
together!
Drawing inspiration from the Ayah “ayet” that reminds us, “{‫س َعى‬ َ ‫ان إالَّ َما‬
ِ ‫س‬ َ ‫”}وأَن لَّي‬
َ ‫ْس ِلإلن‬ َ
(translated as “And that the human being attains only what he strives for”), in Turkish “Ve
insan için, çalışmasından başka bir şey yoktur”. let’s strive for excellence in our pursuit of
knowledge. Your efforts will shape not only your understanding but also the landscapes of
discovery.

These notes are rooted in insights from our lectures, lecture slides and some notes taken
during the lecture. Remember, they’re not for commercial gain; they exist solely to enrich
your academic journey. Let’s explore the stratigraphic layers together, respecting the
copyrights of the original creators.

Feel free to reach out if you have questions or want to share your insights. We’re all in this
together, and your success is vital to the entire study community.

Happy studying!
Mohanad Abotaleb
 How To Study Stratigraphy?
❖ Stratigraphy, like the layers of Earth itself, unfolds in two distinct dimensions:
1) Theoretical Explanations: Here, we delve into the bedrock of concepts—the principles, theories, and
frameworks that underpin stratigraphic understanding. Think of it as deciphering the ancient hieroglyphs
etched into the geological record.
2) Figures and Illustrations: These visual companions breathe life into the sedimentary saga. Maps, cross-
sections, and sedimentary logs become our trusted allies. Imagine sketching the Earth’s memoirs, one
lithological stroke at a time.
❖ Stratigraphy, my fellow geoscientists, is both foundational and forward-looking. It bridges the gap between past
and future.
❖ So, sharpen your pencils, dust off your rock hammer, and let’s unearth the secrets of time, layer by layer. 🌍🔍
❖ And always remember: Strive for knowledge, for therein lies your geological legacy. ⚒️
❖ So, to study efficiently, you need to follow these steps (After saying "Bismillah" 😁):
1) Prepare Ahead of Lectures:
a) Preliminary Reading: Dive into your book or lecture slides before class. This initial exploration
provides a foundation, like surveying the landscape before embarking on a geological expedition.
b) First Read: Absorb the general concepts. Think of it as laying the groundwork for more detailed
insights during the lecture.
c) Topic Organization: As you read, mentally map out the main topics. Anticipate what awaits you in
the lecture.
d) Notes and Beyond: While these notes are valuable, remember that attending lectures, reading
textbooks, and conducting additional research will elevate you from a good student to a seasoned
geologist.
2) Active Lecture Participation:
a) High-Caliber Professors: Attend lectures diligently. Our professors are geological gems, and their
insights fill in the gaps left by your initial reading.
b) Connect the Dots: Relate pre-lecture ideas to the professor’s teachings. It’s like matching rock
layers across time.
c) Note-Taking: Capture hints, nuggets of wisdom, and seismic revelations during the lecture.
d) Figure It Out: Draw the figures the professor illustrates—they’re the bedrock of understanding.
e) Curiosity Unleashed: Don’t hesitate to seek clarification from the professor. Curiosity is our
geological compass.
3) Post-Lecture Recap:
a) Write It Down: Study by writing. It’s like carving petroglyphs into your memory.
b) Beyond Reading: More than mere reading, reimagine the concepts.
c) Figure Redraw: Recreate those vital figures—the stratigraphic Rosetta Stones.
d) Repetition Ritual: Memorize key concepts, tables, and charts by rewriting them. It’s like
sedimentary layering—each repetition adds depth.
4) Self-Evaluation and Exam Prep:
a) Solve and Reflect: Evaluate yourself by solving problems. Mark the questions that stumped you;
revisit them like a patient geologist exploring a puzzling outcrop.
b) Test Bank Expedition: Prepare for the exam by navigating the test bank. It’s your geological
treasure trove.
5) Share the Geological Wealth: Help your fellow geoscientists. Explaining concepts to others solidifies your
own understanding and brings inner peace—like finding a perfectly preserved trilobite fossil.

❖ Following these steps in this course and any other course will guarantee you an AA at the end of it.
❖ So, let us say Bismillah, and we begin to nail it! 🌍🙌🪨
 Week 1 “INTRODUCTION”
What's geology.
❖ Geology is the science of the Earth.
❖ The earth is 4.5 billion years old.
❖ Geology aims to understand:
1) The composition of the earth
2) The structure of the earth
3) The history of the Earth
4) The types of processes acting on the earth
❖ There are many different disciplines in geology such as:
1) Mineralogy
2) Petrology
3) Geochemistry
4) Sedimentology
5) Paleontology
6) Geomorphology
7) Geophysics
8) Hydrogeology
9) Petroleum geology
10) Engineering geology
11) Mining geology
❖ These subjects have resemblances with other natural sciences, such as physics, chemistry, biology, but geology
has the unique component of TIME.

What's Stratigraphy
❖ Within geology the study of time is the study of stratigraphy.
❖ Stratum (Latin) + graphia (Greek), It literally means the study of stratified rocks.
❖ Stratigraphy is a branch of geology specifically concerned with:
1) The arrangement of layered rocks
2) The order and relative position of strata
3) The relationship between the rocks to the geological time scale
❖ Stratification (Latin) = made in layers.
❖ Layered structure formed by the deposition of sedimentary rocks.
 Sedimentary Rocks
❖ Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the deposition of material at the Earth’s surface and
within bodies of water.
❖ The fundamental characteristic and how could you recognize the sedimentary rocks in the field is bedding.
❖ Layers of beds are called strata.
❖ Beds/strata are tabular/planar or lenticular layers of sedimentary rock.
❖ A Bed is the layers of sedimentary rocks that is distinctly different from overlying and underlying subsequent
beds of different sedimentary rocks.
❖ Bedding is the most important feature of a sedimentary rock and is the most widely used term in describing a
sedimentary sequence.
❖ The structure of a bed is determined by its bedding plane.
❖ A planar unit of rocks was originally spread as sheets over a surface of accumulation.
❖ Sedimentary Rocks are the Archives of Earth History.
❖ Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause mineral and/or organic particles (detritus) to
settle and accumulate or minerals to precipitate from a solution.
❖ Particles that form a sedimentary rock by accumulating are called sediment.

The types of sedimentary rocks

❖ There are three types of sedimentary rocks:
1) Clastic ‘Detrital’ Sedimentary Rocks (Conglomerate- Breccia)
2) Chemical Sedimentary Rocks (Limestone- Travertine)
3) Biochemical Sedimentary Rocks (Fossiliferous Limestones- Chert- Chalk)
❖ Oolitic limestone contains small spherical ooids.
❖ Evaporates are precipitated directly from highly saline water when a large quantity water evaporates (Rock salt
‘Halite’- Gypsum).
❖ Chert (SiO2) is composed of tiny shells from planktonic life, but the organisms secrete SiO2 shells.
❖ Chalk (CaCO3) is composed of tiny shells from planktonic life, but the organisms secrete CaCO3 shells.
❖ Coal is organic, buried and un-oxidized plant remains at Non-Marine environments ‘Swamp’.

The study of sedimentary rocks

❖ The study of sedimentary rocks has two aspects:
1) Sedimentology: is the study of the processes of formation, transport and deposition of material that
accumulates as sediment in continental and marine environments and eventually forms sedimentary
rocks.
2) Stratigraphy: is the study of rocks to determine the order and timing of events in Earth history. It
provides the time frame that allows us to interpret sedimentary rocks in terms of dynamic evolving
environments.
❖ The stratigraphic record of sedimentary rocks is the fundamental database for understanding the evolution of
life, Paleogeography through time and global climate change.
 Stratigraphy is the art of detection
❖ The rocks on the Earth’s surface are the clues from which the Earth’s history and the processes which have
shaped it can be deduced.
❖ Each layer or stratum of rock contains a clue to the Earth’s geography, climate and ecology at a specific time.
❖ The job of the stratigrapher is to observe, describe and interpret a sequence of such layers and the rock bodies
in terms of events and processes in the history of the Earth.

Reading Sedimentary Rocks

❖ The present is the key to the past.
❖ The characteristics of sedimentary rocks provide information about transport and environment.
❖ The characteristics of the sedimentary rocks are:
1) Texture
2) Components
3) Fabric /structures

1. Texture
❖ Texture gives clues about depositional environment and transport.
❖ The aspects of the texture of the sedimentary rocks are:
1) Grain size
2) Grain shape
3) Sorting
❖ Maturity: refers to the degree of roundness and sorting of the grains within the rock.

2. Components (clues about origin and depositional environment)

❖ Components gives the clues about origin and depositional environment.
❖ We measure the components of a sedimentary rock in terms of:
1) Minerals and rock fragments
2) Fossils

3. Fabric /structures
❖ In sedimentary rocks, fabric or structure refers to the arrangement of sedimentary particles or components
within the rock.
❖ This arrangement provides important clues about the depositional environment and subsequent geological
processes that have affected the rock.

Uniformitarianism
❖ Uniformitarianism is the assumption that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now,
have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe.
❖ Sedimentary structures such as ripples can be seen in sedimentary rocks and can be compared to ripples
forming today, either in natural environments or in a laboratory tank.
❖ We can see modern ripples exposed at low tide along a sandy beach on the shore are similar to a 145 million-
year-old ripple marks preserved on a tilted bed of sandstone.
 The subdivisions phases of stratigraphy
❖ Stratigraphy is subdivided into three phases:
1) Description of the strata in local area.
2) Correlation of local sections by studying:
a) Outcrops and well logs
b) Seismic
c) Paleontology
d) Magnetostratigraphy and geochemistry
e) Radiometric dating
3) Interpretation of the stratigraphic record.

1st step: An example of the Description of a sequence of a rock layer

❖ The oldest rocks are on the bottom (sandstones).

❖ The sandstones represent rocks deposited in a shallow marine environment.
❖ The younger rocks reveal an environment change into a tidal area.
❖ Through time the tidal area evolves into a lagoon and then a swamp.
❖ The sequence provides information on changing environments through time.
❖ Then you can determine the sequences in other places and then correlate one rock type with another.
2nd step: An example for the Correlation of local sections

❖ Stratigraphic columns can be correlated by matching rock types (lithologic correlation).

3rd step: An example of the Interpretation of the stratigraphic record

Value of Stratigraphy
❖ Sedimentary Rocks are important and have a wide variety of uses:
1) From the philosophical point of view, stratigraphy provides the basis for understanding the earth’s past
history that it allows us to:
a) Reconstruct physical/chemical/biological attributes of ancient environments
b) Reconstruct paleogeography and paleoclimatology
c) See a Detailed earth’s history as a predictive environmental tool
d) See Sea level as links to climate, oceanography, evolution, tectonics
2) From the practical / economical points of view, stratigraphy permits an understanding of the formation
and exploration of:
a) Fossil fuels (coal, petroleum...)
b) Mineral resources (trona, borax, stratified iron ore, phosphates...)
c) Groundwater
d) Building materials (clay, sand, man-made material ‘cement’)
 Week 2 “Origin of Sediments & Surface Processes”
❖ Sediments are formed from ‘second hand’ material which has been released from pre-formed/ older rocks by
the actions of weathering and erosion.
❖ After the weathering takes place, the new product is removed, transported to some other place until it finally
comes to rest in a more stable situation.

SOURCE ROCK SURFACE PROCESSES SEDIMENTS DEPOSITION SEDIMENTARY ROCKS

 Weathering processes
❖ Weathering is the breakdown and alteration of bedrock by mechanical and chemical processes that create a
regolith (layer of loose material), which is then available for transport away from the site.
❖ As rocks are exposed at the surface, they are no longer in stable condition.
❖ Rock exposed at the land surface is subject to physical and chemical modification by a number of different
weathering processes.
❖ Although different rocks exhibit varying degrees of resistance to the weathering, eventually they all break up.
❖ After the weathering takes place, the new product is removed and transported to some other place until it
finally comes to rest in a more stable situation.

Physical / Mechanical Weathering

❖ Mechanical/physical Weathering: are the processes that break the solid rock into pieces (grains or chunks) and
may separate the different minerals without involving any chemical reactions.
❖ The most important agents in this process are as follows:
1) Frost Wedging / Frost shattering
2) Salt weathering
3) Exfoliation

1. Frost Wedging / Frost shattering

❖ Almost all rock outcrops contain joints.
❖ Some joints are fairly planar, some curving, and some irregular.
❖ Sedimentary rock beds may break into rectangular blocks bounded by joints on the sides and bed surfaces above
and below.
❖ Regardless of their orientation, the formation of joints turns formerly intact bedrock into separate blocks.
❖ Water entering cracks in rock expands upon freezing, forcing the cracks/ joints to widen
❖ This process is also known as frost shattering and it is extremely effective in areas that regularly fluctuate
around 0 degree Celsius, such as high mountains in temperate climates and in polar regions.
❖ Frost Wedging is disrupting the bedrock, producing vast litter of angular boulders.
❖ Freezing and thawing is causing the volume of water to increase and decrease to 13.5 %, but average 10%.
❖ Frost wedging is favorable in high latitudes and at high altitudes with many freeze-thaw cycles, especially in
spring and autumn.
 2. Salt weathering (salt wedging)
❖ In arid climates, dissolved salt in ground or sea water precipitates and grows as crystals in pore spaces in rocks.
❖ This process, called salt wedging, pushes apart the surrounding grains and weakens the rock so that when
exposed to wind and rain, the rock disintegrates into separate grains.
❖ The same phenomenon happens along the coast, where salt spray percolates into rock and then dries.
❖ Common in semi-arid and arid regions and in coastal areas in more humid climates.

3. Exfoliation
❖ Changes in temperature plays a role in the physical break down of rock.
❖ Rapid changes in temperature occur in some desert areas where the temperature can fluctuate by several tens
of degrees Celsius between day and night; if different minerals expand and contract at different rates, the
internal forces created could cause the rock to split. This process is referred to as exfoliation, as thin layers break
off the surface of the rock.
❖ Unloading → Stress release → Erosion

Chemical weathering
❖ Chemical weathering are these processes involving changes to the minerals that make up a rock.
❖ Chemical weathering occurs where chemical reactions cause the minerals in the rock to alter and decompose.
❖ The intensity and rate of chemical weathering can vary with climate.
❖ Chemical weathering happens mainly in warm wet climates.
❖ Warmth increases the rate of chemical reaction, and water allows chemical substances to be carried in solution.
❖ The reactions (Chemical Weathering) that can take place are as follows:
1) Dissolution
2) Hydrolysis
3) Oxidation
4) Hydration & Dehydration

1. Dissolution
❖ Dissolution is a Chemical weathering during which minerals dissolve into water.
❖ Most rock-forming silicate minerals have very low solubility in pure water at the temperatures at the Earth’s
surface and so most rock types are not susceptible to rapid solution. It is only under conditions of strongly
alkaline waters that silica becomes moderately soluble.
❖ Carbonate minerals are moderately soluble, especially if the groundwater (water passing through bed rock close
to the surface) is acidic.
❖ Most soluble are evaporate minerals such as halite (sodium chloride) and gypsum.
* Decomposition of limestone / Solution-Karst Topography
❖ Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum.
❖ It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves.

2. Hydrolysis
❖ During hydrolysis, water chemically reacts with minerals and breaks them down to form other minerals.
❖ Natural acids that are important in promoting hydrolysis include carbonic acid (formed by the solution of carbon
dioxide in water).
❖ Many silicates undergo hydrolysis reactions, for example the formation of kaolinite (a clay mineral) from
orthoclase (a feldspar) by reaction with water.
❖ If a feldspar mineral (i.e. aluminosilicate) is weathered, clay minerals can be formed.
❖ ALBITE (sodium-rich feldspar) reacts with carbonic acid to give sodium ions, silicic acid, and the clay mineral,
KAOLINITE.

3. Oxidation
❖ The widest spread oxidation reactions in rocks transform iron bearing minerals (such as biotite and pyrite) into a
rusty brown mixture of various iron-oxide and iron-hydroxide minerals.
❖ In effect, iron-bearing rocks can “rust.”
❖ The distinctive red-orange rust color of ferric iron oxides may be seen in many rocks exposed at the surface,
even though the amount of iron present may be very small.
❖ Loss of electron from element Fe and Mn, S.

4. Hydration & Dehydration

❖ Hydration, the absorption of water into the crystal structure of minerals, causes some minerals, such as
evaporitic minerals and certain types of clay, to expand.
❖ Such expansion weakens rock.
❖ Dehydration involves the loss of water from the reacting molecule or ion into the crystal structure of minerals.
❖ Gypsum ↔ Anhydrite / CaSO4•2H2O↔CaSO4
Biological weathering
❖ Biological weathering occurs where plants and animals cause the break-up of rocks.
❖ The growth of tree roots can force rocks to split.
❖ Burrowing animals can also help break up rocks.
❖ Humans have become perhaps the most energetic agent of physical weathering on the planet with excavating
and mining…etc.

Physical weathering & chemical weathering

❖ Physical weathering speeds up chemical weathering.
❖ Chemical weathering reactions take place at the surface of a material.
❖ The overall rate at which chemical weathering occurs depends on the ratio of surface area to volume
❖ The greater the surface area, the faster the volume can chemically weather.
❖ When jointing (physical weathering) breaks a large block of rock into smaller pieces, the surface area increases,
so chemical weathering happens faster.
❖ Chemical weathering speeds up physical weathering by dissolving away grains or cements that hold a rock
together, transforming hard minerals (like feldspar) into soft minerals (like clay) and causing minerals to absorb
water and expand which makes the rock weaker, so it can disintegrate more easily.

Chemical weathering The weakness of rock increases Physical weathering increases

Physical weathering The surface area increases Chemical weathering increases

 Influence of the source rock
❖ As rocks are exposed at the surface, they are no longer in stable condition.
❖ Although different rocks exhibit varying degrees of resistance to the weathering, eventually they all break up.
❖ When different rocks in an outcrop undergo weathering at different rates, the outcrop has undergone
“differential weathering.

❖ In places where chemical weathering is subdued, lithic fragments may form an important component of the
detritus generated by physical processes.
❖ The nature of these fragments will directly reflect the bedrock/source rock type and can include any lithology
found at the Earth’s surface.
❖ Some lithologies do not last very long as fragments: rocks made of evaporate minerals are readily dissolved and
other lithologies are very fragile making them susceptible to break-up.
❖ Detritus composed of basaltic lithic fragments can form around volcanoes and broken up limestone can make up
an important clastic component of some shallow marine environments.
❖ The products of weathering = Weathered material= New Products.
❖ Material produced by weathering and erosion of material exposed on continental landmasses is referred to as
terrigenous (meaning derived from land).
❖ Weathered material on the surface is an important component of the regolith that occurs on top of the bedrock
in most places.
❖ Terrigenous clastic detritus comprises minerals weathered out of bedrock, lithic fragments and new minerals
formed by weathering processes.
The products of weathering
❖ The product of Physical processes is fragmentation.
❖ The product of Chemical processes is
1) Dissolution: usually in water
2) Alteration: change to different minerals by chemical reactions
❖ Rock-forming minerals can be categorized in terms of their stability in the surface environment.
❖ Stable minerals such as quartz are relatively unaffected by chemical weathering processes and physical
weathering simply separates the quartz crystals from each other and from other minerals in the rock.
❖ Micas and orthoclase feldspars are relatively resistant to these processes, whereas plagioclase feldspars,
amphiboles, pyroxenes and olivine all react very readily under surface conditions and are only rarely carried
away from the site of weathering in an unaltered state.

❖ The most important products of the chemical weathering of silicates are clay minerals.
❖ A wide range of clay minerals form because of the breakdown of different bedrock minerals under different
chemical conditions; the most common are kaolinite, illite, chlorite and montmorillonite.
❖ Oxides of aluminum (bauxite) and iron (mainly hematite) also form under conditions of extreme chemical
weathering.
Granite as an example of weathering
❖ The biotite and hornblende will undergo hydrolysis to form clay, and oxidation to form iron oxides.
❖ The feldspars will undergo hydrolysis to form kaolinite (clay) and release Na+ and K+ ions into solution.
❖ The quartz (and muscovite, if present) will remain as residual minerals because they are very resistant to
weathering.

❖ Principal kinds of products formed by subaerial weathering processes and the types of sedimentary rocks
ultimately formed from these products:
 Week 3 “Erosion and Transportation”
❖ As rocks are exposed at the surface, they are no longer in stable condition.
❖ Although different rocks exhibit varying degrees of resistance to the weathering, eventually they all break up.
❖ After the destruction takes place, the new product is removed and transported to some other place until it
finally comes to rest in a more stable situation.
❖ The pathway of processes involved in the formation of a succession of clastic sedimentary rocks, part of the rock
cycle.

Transportation
❖ Weathering produces rock, mineral and chemical debris at the place where the original rock was exposed.
❖ This material is usually transported to a different site before being deposited as sediment.
❖ Weathering is the in-situ (in site) breakdown of bedrock and erosion is the removal of these materials.
❖ The material can be moved by several different ways:
1) by gravity
2) by running/flowing water (rivers and streams)
3) by waters in the sea
4) by wind
5) by glacial ice
❖ Often several of these ‘agents’ of transportation may move one sediment.
❖ For example, pieces of rock may fall (gravity) onto a glacier; then be carried by ice until melting occurs; then be
moved on by a stream; then reach the sea; and eventually be deposited by waves.

1. Transportation by gravity
❖ The simplest mechanism of sediment transport is the movement of particles under gravity down a slope.
❖ On steep slopes in mountainous areas and along cliffs, movements downslope under gravity are commonly the
first steps in the erosion and transport of weathered material.
❖ Falls, slides and slumps are responsible for moving vast quantities of material downslope in mountain areas but
they do not move detritus very far, only down to the floor of the valleys.
❖ These movements of material under gravity alone may be triggered by an earthquake, by undercutting at the
base of the slope, or by other mechanisms, such as water logging of a potentially unstable slope by a heavy
rainfall.
2. Transportation by flowing/running water
❖ Erosion by water on hillsides is initially as a sheet wash, i.e. unconfined surface run-off down a slope following
rain.
❖ This over ground flow may pick up loose debris from the surface and erode the regolith.
❖ The quantity of water involved and its carrying capacity depends not only on the amount of rainfall but also the
characteristics of the surface.
❖ water runs faster down a steep slope; vegetation tends to reduce flow and trap debris and a porous substrate
results in infiltration of the surface water.

❖ Viscosity = The resistance to flow.

❖ The viscosity and density of fluids are controlled by Composition and Temperature.
❖ Composition characteristics of running water:
1) Salinity increase, Density of water increase
2) Sediment load increase, Density of water increase
3) Density of water increases Viscosity of water increase.
❖ Temperature characteristics of running water:
1) Temperature decrease, Density of water increases Just above the freezing point
2) Temperature decrease, Viscosity of water increases
❖ Competence: is a maximum size of the particles it can move/transport.
❖ Competence increases with velocity and discharge (therefore gradient)
❖ Capacity: is a maximum load it can transport in a unit of time.
❖ Once fully loaded, a stream is unable to pick up additional sediment. So the velocity of a stream decreases, both
its competence and its capacity are reduced and it becomes overloaded.
❖ Load: is the quantity of sediment being transported by a stream.
❖ Discharge: is the quantity of water that passes a given point in a unit of time.
❖ As competence decreases, the coarsest particles are dropped first. Then, the stream may spend its energy on
the remaining particles and may even pick up additional sediment.
❖ The finer particles in a stream move faster and farther than the larger and heavier ones.
❖ As the velocity declines the latter will come to rest while the finer particles continue to move.
❖ Thus, there is a constant passing of some particles by others during transportation. This phenomenon is termed
bypassing.
❖ Total-passing occurs where the current is able to transport all its load, and none comes to rest.
Types of flow
❖ Mode of fluids depends upon velocity and viscosity of the fluids and can be:
a) Laminar flow
b) Turbulent flow

[Link] flow
❖ Laminar flow is minor and only occurs in slow water over a smooth bed.
❖ In laminar flows, all molecules within the fluid move parallel to each other in the direction of transport.
❖ A fluid moves by a smooth parallel gliding of filaments of current pass one another.
❖ Series of parallel sheets wherein movement occurs on molecular scale in a coherent stream; movement is only
down current, parallel to boundary.
❖ (Velocity decreasing, Viscosity of water increases)

b. Turbulent flow
❖ Turbulent flow is the most common type.
❖ It involves swirling, eddies, etc. with a great for erosion & load.
❖ In turbulent flows, molecules in the fluid move in all directions but with a net movement in the transport
direction.
❖ The motion becomes irregular and distinctly eddying.
❖ Irregular or random flow due to increased velocity or decreased viscosity; movement is down current, parallel to
boundary as well as up- and –down in fluid.
❖ Turbulence entrains particles and keeps some of them in suspension (sand: intermittently; clay, silt: more
constantly).
❖ The amount of turbulence increases generally with bottom roughness.
Water's load
❖ Flowing water/stream carries sediment in three ways:
a) Solution load
b) Suspension load
c) Bed load / Bottom traction.

a. Solution / Dissolved load

❖ Solution: Soluble/invisible products of weathering from the source rock goes into solution and are carried by
flowing water.
❖ During transportation physical-chemical equilibrium may change and precipitation may occur from this solution.
❖ Dissolved loads are usually minor but may be quite large in some rivers.

b. Suspended load
❖ Suspension load is the fine silt and mud (clay particles) which is carried suspended within the water.
❖ These smaller particles require less energy to carry than the bed load and are only deposited when the flow is
very low in energy.
❖ In some cases, especially during floods, river water has so much suspended sediment that it looks muddy and
brown.
❖ Because the grain has very little mass, the instantaneous high velocity within the turbulent flow keeps the grain
from returning to the bottom.
❖ It forms ~ 90% of total load.

c. Bed load
❖ Bed load is the larger material such as pebbles, gravel and sand grains which is pulled along with the water.
❖ The grains move over the surface without losing contact with the bed surface.
❖ The bed load moves by sliding, rolling, and bouncing.
❖ Rolling: rolled or dragged along base of moving fluid.
❖ Saltation (temporarily suspended): Bouncing movement along the bottom.
❖ The particles move in a series of jumps, periodically leaving the bed surface, and carried short distances within
the body of the fluid before returning to the bed again.
❖ The grains will rise at first but then return to bottom. It falls back to the bottom.
❖ When it contacts the bottom, it may bounce or knock other grains into smaller motion.
❖ The bed load is in motion only intermittently, when the force of the water is sufficient to move the larger
particles.
❖ Often fragments are dumped for a while then moved again when the flow of water increases after rain.
❖ Bed load typically forms < 10 % of total load.
Resistance to movement after deposition
❖ The Hjulström curve/diagram shows the relationship between the velocity of a water flow and the transport of
loose grains.

❖ Once a grain has settled it requires more energy to start it moving than a grain that is already in motion.
❖ The cohesive properties of clay particles mean that fine-grained sediments require relatively high velocities to
re-erode/move them once they are deposited, especially once they are compacted.

Erosional Effects of the Flowing Water

❖ The agents of transportation not only move sediment; they also produce more of it by wearing away the rocks
they travel over. This process is called erosion.
❖ During transportation, shape and size of particles are modified.
❖ The erosion done by running water is due to:
1) The power of moving water itself
2) The chemical reactions between the rock and water
❖ The impacts of a bed load and suspension load:
1) splitting,
2) crushing
3) chipping
4) cracking
5) grinding
❖ As they strike each other and the surrounding rock they all become damaged.
❖ Fragments become smaller and may become rounded as the corners are knocked off.
 3. Transportation in the sea
❖ Currents in the sea are generated by winds, tides and differences in the specific gravity of the water bodies.
❖ Drift currents are created by the friction of the wind blowing over the ocean’s surface. (i.e. Longshore drift
currents).
❖ Tidal currents are created by the tides.
❖ Density currents (* Turbidity currents): are generated by differences in the specific gravity of the water bodies.
❖ These differences in specific gravity of sea water which causes density currents may arise from differences:
1) in temperature
2) in salinity
3) in suspended sediment

Longshore drift currents

❖ A longshore current, caused by refracting waves, moves water in a zigzag fashion along the shoreline.
❖ It causes a net movement of sand grains (longshore drift) from upstream to downstream ends.
❖ The deeper the water, the less energy is involved in wave motion, so smaller and smaller particles are moved
farther offshore.
❖ This results in the size sorting of sediment, with grain size decreasing away from the coast.
❖ Waves that crash onto the beach are called breakers. Wave energy is dissipated by turbulence, which creates
frothy white water in the surf zone.
❖ A surge of water (swash) rushes up the beach face.
❖ Gravity pulls the backwash down the slope of the beach.

Turbidity Currents
❖ Turbidity Currents are a special type of density current.
❖ When a submarine landslide on a steep slope sets in motion, a great mass of loose sediment incorporates water
as it moves, so heavily weighted fluid mass is created.
❖ This fluid flows down the slope where the slope flattens out.
❖ The velocity of a turbidity current depends on:
1) The mass of the sediment
2) The concentration of suspended material
3) The steepness of the bottom slope.
❖ The velocity of the sediment-charged water decreases rapidly so the coarsest particles settle out first and after
finer ones follow.
❖ The resulting deposit of turbidity current is a single layer graded from coarse at the bottom to fine at the top.
 ❖ Turbidity currents are distinguished into two types:
1) Steady turbidity currents arise when a continuing supply of turbid water is over a sloping bottom.
2) Spasmodic turbidity currents develop only when a large volume of loose sediment is suddenly thrown
into suspension as by a submarine landslide on a slope.

The role of waves

❖ The waves are generated by the wind blowing over the surface of the sea/lake.
❖ The size of waves depends on:
1) Wind speed
2) Water depth
3) The distance over which the wind has blown
❖ Waves do not carry water forward with them. The water moves rhythmically up and down giving a pattern of
alternate crests and troughs. Water particles in the waves follow circular orbits.
❖ They have no effect on sediment movement in deep water, because they do not interact with the bottom over
which they pass.
❖ The formation of wave ripples in sediment is produced by oscillatory motion in the water column due to wave
ripples on the surface of the water. Note that there is no overall lateral movement of the water, or of the
sediment. In deep water the internal friction reduces the oscillation and wave ripples do not form in the
sediment.
❖ In shallower water, close to shore, this movement is affected by the sea bed.
❖ Because the trough cannot develop properly the crest is forced to rise up until it topples forward and breaks.
❖ At this point water moves up onto the shore in what is called the swash of the wave.
❖ When the energy of this is spent, water will return downslope as the backwash.
❖ The power of the swash and backwash depends on the size of the wave and the slope of the shore.
❖ Deposition occurs when the waves slow down, causing the water to drop the sediment.
❖ Powerful swash carries materials up beach. (causing deposition).

❖ Small waves on gently sloping beach Swash carries material up beach causing deposition.
 ❖ Powerful backwash drags the materials from beach out to sea. (causing erosion).

❖ Their backwash is much stronger than their swash, thus allowing them to remove material from the beach.
(causing erosion).
❖ They are tall waves, meaning they have a greater distance to fall than they break. This causes them to scour out
the beach material.
❖ Destructive waves create a steep narrow beach.
❖ Large waves on steep beach Powerful backwash drags the material from beach out to sea.

Cliff-shore Environment
❖ Large waves hit rocks with lots of force. The energy in waves can break apart rocks. Over time waves make small
cracks bigger. Eventually the wave causes the rock to chip off.
Features of wave erosion coasts
❖ Given enough time, the headlands (being attacked on both sides by breaking waves) will progressively erode to
produce sea caves, sea arches and sea stacks, respectively.

Coastal Depositional Landforms

4. Transportation by wind (flowing air)

❖ The wind is caused by differences in atmospheric pressure. When a difference in atmospheric pressure exists, air
moves from the higher to the lower pressure area, resulting in winds of various speeds.
❖ Winds are the result of atmospheric pressure differences that are partly due to global temperature distributions,
and also local variations in pressure due to the temperature of water masses that move with ocean currents,
heat absorbed by land masses and cold air over high glaciated mountain regions.
❖ Winds experienced at the present day range up to storm force winds of 100 km to hurricanes that are twice that
velocity.
❖ Winds can pick up loose clay, silt and sand-sized debris from the land surface. Wind erosion is most effective
where the land surface is not bound by plants and hence it is prevalent where vegetation is sparse, in cold
regions, such as near the poles and in high mountains, and dry deserts.
❖ Eroded fine material (up to sand grade) can be carried over distances of hundreds or thousands of kilometers by
the wind. The size of material carried is related to the strength (velocity) of the air current.
❖ Wind is a powerful agent especially in arid regions. But its effect on loose sediment is quite different from that
of the flowing water.
 ❖ There is a great difference in density and viscosity between air and water:
1) (Density of air decreases, Density of water increases)
2) (Viscosity of air decreases, Viscosity of water increases)
❖ The largest grains that can be moved by wind are far smaller than by water.
❖ The grains settle much more rapidly in air than in water.
❖ The velocity of winds may greatly exceed than of currents in water and it commonly changes abruptly.
❖ Wind is normally turbulent.
❖ Its velocity like that of a stream, increases with height above the ground.
❖ Like a stream, it can carry coarser particles as bed load and finer ones as suspended load.
❖ Wind selects sand grains of limited size range and concentrates them into ridges or dunes.
❖ Wind-blown sand is well-sorted.
❖ Desert sand is generally between 0.15mm and 0.30 mm in diameter.

Movement of sand
❖ Sand is transported by:
1) saltation
2) surface creep
❖ Saltation: sand grains move in long jumps, as they do in streams. The jumps are elastic bounces like those of
ping-pong balls.
❖ There are two types of impact:
1) In splashing impact: jumping sand grain strikes one or more other grains and splashes them into the air
at slow speeds and too low height.
2) In bouncing impacts: sand grain strikes pebbles or other wide, rigid surfaces and bounces up at high
speed and to greater heights.
❖ Surface creep: In a strong wind the net result of bombardment of the grains in saltation creates a movement of
all the grains at the surface and this is called surface creep.
Erosional Effects of the Wind
❖ Flowing air erodes 2 ways:
1) Deflation: the picking up and removal of loose particles by wind, provides of the wind load is known
deflation.
2) Ventifact: abrasion of rock by wind- driven rock particles. The surface of bedrock or of large grain
(pebble) is cut and polished by the abrasive action of windblown sand-silt.

Depositional Effects of the Wind

❖ Dune: is a mound or ridge of sand deposited by the wind; is an asymmetrical body with a gentle slope on the
windward side and a steep slope, a slip face, on the lee side.
❖ Most of the dunes are made of quartz sand but calcareous dunes may be formed of foraminiferal shells and of
shell-sand along the shores.

Causes of accumulation
❖ When the wind hits an obstacle (Topographic obstruction, Vegetation, Dune itself) it can create a sand dune.

Formation of the cross-bedding in dunes

1) A sand patch is growing.
2) The wind near the surface is checked /hold back so the overload is dropped.
3) Sand patch forms a mound.
4) The wind pushes or rolls sand grains up to the crest over the windward slope and drops them down the
slip face.
5) Erosion of the windward slope continually erodes the layers already deposited, as new ones are added
to the slip face.

Types of dunes (Most common types)

❖ Barchan dunes: are crescent-shaped sand ridges.
❖ Transverse dunes: are elongated, almost straight sand ridges oriented at right angles to the predominant wind
direction.
 ❖ Longitudinal (seif) dunes: are elongated almost straight sand ridges with long axis oriented parallel to the wind
direction.
❖ Loess: Silt and clay size sediments winnowed from the desert area are kept in suspension for long periods of
time and blown over long distances.
❖ This dust is deposited in adjoining regions (steppes).
❖ Windblown dust settles down because of a loss in velocity, or it may be washed down from the air by rain and
kept in place by the grass. These deposits are called loess.
❖ Such deposits are devoid of stratification. A faint lamination may be seen.

5. Transportation by floating ice/glaciers

❖ Glaciers are very effective transport agents.
❖ The competency of glaciers to transport rock debris is rather high.
❖ Unlike water and wind, there is negligible lateral diffusion.
❖ There is almost no sorting of sediment during glacial transport.
❖ There are two important sources of rock debris in glaciers:
1) The rock fragments weathering out from the steep slopes above the glaciers.
2) The rock debris produced by glacial erosion from the bedrock and valley walls.
❖ The ice moved down to valleys, pulled with gravity and pushed by the accumulated weight.
❖ The weight of accumulated snow and ice grew greater, until finally, the lower layers of ice could no longer
withstand the greater pressure.
❖ Two things occurred:
1) The bottom of the ice begins to melt slightly because of pressure and this meltwater acted as a
lubricant, allowing the ice mass to begin to slide downhill.
2) The weak bonds between ice crystals in the lower layers were ruptured by the pressure, so movement
(a few millionths of an mm= 1/1.000.000) takes place between ice crystals. When multiplied by the
billions of ice crystals present resulted in significant movement within the glacier itself.

Erosion and Transportation by glaciers

❖ Glaciers erode the land in two ways:
a) Plucking
b) Abrasion

a. Plucking
❖ Plucking is the process by which a glacier picks up rocks.
❖ The weight of a glacier makes it easy to break rocks and boulders into pieces. Once all the rock fragments are
picked up, they are carried around wherever the glacier goes.
❖ Glacial plucking is most common where a glacier flows over an obstacle.
❖ The blocks plucked by the ice and subsequently incorporated into the glacier are often loosened by subglacial
freeze-thaw action.

b. Abrasion
❖ Abrasion: As the glacier moves along the land the rock fragments that were stuck to the bottom scrap against
the bedrock
❖ On the up-flow side of the obstacle abrasion occurs but on the down-flow side the ice dislodges blocks that
range from centimeters to meters across.
Moraines
❖ Moraine / Till: is a general term used for glacial sediments, both for the sediment in transport and the resulting
sediment deposits.
❖ The sediment load may occupy various different positions within a glacier.
❖ If the sediment is transported near the surface which is located along the margins, this is called a lateral
moraine.
❖ If two glaciers join together, the marginal moraine also occupies a central position, this is called the medial
moraine.
❖ So the surface load is transported as marginal moraines and one or more medial moraines.
❖ The bottom of a glacier may be charged with sediment debris, obtained by glacial erosion, that is abrasion and
quarrying. This bottom load is called a ground/basal moraine.
❖ Lateral moraines form on the sides of active glaciers, while medial moraines form where two glaciers merge.

Roundness & Sorting

❖ Roundness: measure of how rounded the corners are.
❖ Angular grains close to its source.
❖ Rounded grains transported for a great distance
❖ Sorting: measure of the variation in the range of grain sizes in a clastic rock or sediment.
❖ Well-sorted sediments indicate that they have been subjected to prolonged water or wind action.
❖ Poorly sorted sediments are either not far-removed from their source or deposited by glaciers.
 DIAGENESIS & Lithification
❖ DIAGENESIS: is any chemical, physical, or biological change undergone by a sediment after its initial deposition,
and/or after its lithification.
❖ Lithification: The conversion of a newly deposited, unconsolidated sediment into a coherent, solid rock.
❖ Pressure, heat, different fluids lead to Compaction.
❖ The process of lithification is accompanied by physical, mineralogical, and chemical changes.
❖ Compaction and dehydration will reduce the volume of these sediments drastically.
❖ The pressure of the overburden forces waters out of the pore spaces.
❖ The change is negligible in the sand because they rest in solid contact when deposited.
❖ Clay includes much water in which the clay particles are in suspension; So in the transformation of the clay in
suspension into shale, most of the water is squeezed out and the original thickness is reduced.
❖ Packing: is the pattern of spacing of grains in the volume of rock.
❖ Packing affects the porosity and permeability of the rock.
❖ Cubic packing produces the greatest porosity (48%), while Rhombohedral packing results in least porosity (26%).

❖ Cementation: Another method converting the sediment into stone is by the precipitation of cementing materials
that fill the empty spaces and bond the particles together.
❖ Cementation material:
1) Calcium carbonate
2) Silica
3) Iron oxide
4) Gypsum
❖ If the sediment is impure like in mudstones, siltstones, some impure sandstones, clay minerals form a matrix.
❖ Matrix is the finer (deposited) material between most of the grains
❖ Cements are minerals precipitated from waters in and passing through the pores.
❖ Porosity represents the “holes” in the rock: these may be primary, having existed immediately after
sedimentation, or secondary, having been produced by mineral dissolution or fracturing during diagenesis.

❖ Chemical alterations: Solution may remove less stable forms of mineral which are then replaced by more stable
forms.
❖ Aragonite changes into calcite.
❖ Recrystallization: In this process less stable mineral particles tend to change to a more stable form.
❖ Calcite recrystallize into coarser calcite.
❖ Destructive distillation of organic matter: In a reducing environment the organic material in the sediment decays
by slow distillation.
❖ That means organic compounds (C6H10O5) frees CO2 and H2O and loose these molecules. In this process only
carbon is left and the color of the sediment becomes black (carbonization).
❖ Reduction: In stagnant water, after the deposition of the sediments, the free oxygen is exhausted and in the
presence of decaying organic matter, an oxygen hungry or reducing environment is created.
❖ Especially the ferric (Ferric is the +3 oxidation state of Iron) compounds of sediments are reduced to ferrous
(Ferrous is the+2 oxidation state of Iron) condition. So hematite, goethite, etc. loose their red pigments, yellow,
brown colors and the sediment becomes gray colored.

Week 4 “STRATIFICATION”
❖ Stratigraphy is the study of stratified rocks.
❖ The most and typical stratified rocks are sedimentary rocks.
❖ Bedding is perhaps the most important feature of a sedimentary rock, and is the most widely used term in
describing a sedimentary sequence.
❖ Beds: A planar unit of rocks that was originally spread as sheets over a surface of accumulation.
❖ We can call a bed as A single layer of sediment or sedimentary rock with a recognizable top and bottom.
❖ The boundary between two beds is a bedding plane.
❖ Several beds together constitute strata (singular stratum, from the Latin stratum, meaning pavement).
❖ The overall arrangement of sediment into a sequence of beds is bedding, or stratification.
❖ In some outcrops, stratification can be quite subtle. But commonly, successive beds have different colors,
textures, and resistance to erosion, so bedding gives outcrops a striped appearance.
❖ Beds/strata are tabular or lenticular layers of sedimentary rock that have lithologic, textural or structural unity
that clearly distinguished them from above and below.

Nature of stratification
❖ Layer is a planar unit limited by differences in composition, texture or structure of the rock material. So layering
includes not only stratification but all other planar arrangements. (gneissic banding)
❖ Bed is defined as the layer of sediment which is a visibly distinct unit and it is separated by bedding planes which
means by actual partings or by planes along which partings tend to develop.
❖ Laminae / lamina (pl) is a layer of sediment which is less than 1 cm thick.
❖ Stratum /strata(pl)imply that the layers are deposited separately and successively, one after another. These
terms are applied to rocks of sedimentary origin.
❖ several beds together constitute strata
❖ A single bed is a sedimentary unit that has been deposited under essentially constant conditions.
❖ A single bed is separated from adjoining beds by bounding planes-bedding surfaces –bedding planes.
❖ The bedding surfaces are visible because of some textural or compositional changes from one bed to the other.
❖ A lamina is produced as a result of minor fluctuations in rather than constant physical conditions.
❖ Bedding planes between beds represent periods of:
1) Non-deposition
2) Erosion
3) Changes to completely different depositional conditions
 ❖ Terms used for describing the thickness of beds and laminae:

Basis of stratification
❖ Individual beds are produced under essentially constant physical, chemical or biological conditions.
❖ Changes in environmental conditions e.g. the climate, water depth, current velocity, or the sediment source
control the type of sediment deposited at a location at a given time.
❖ For example, on a normal day a low-energy river may carry only silt, which deposits on the riverbed. During a
flood, the river flows faster and carries sand and pebbles, so a layer of sandy gravel forms over the silt layer.
Then, when the flooding stops, more silt buries the gravel.
❖ If this succession of sediments becomes lithified and exposed, they appear as alternating beds of siltstone and
sandy conglomerate.
❖ Many beds must have been produced very rapidly by a single event, such as a flood, that lasted only a few hours
or days.
❖ Even more rapid deposition, lasting only seconds or minutes occurs in some environments such as the
deposition of a sand layer by grain flow down the slip face of a sand dune.
❖ On the other hand, deposition from the suspension of sediments of very fine clay could take months or years.
❖ Why does bedding form?
1) Changes in the composition
2) Changes in grain size and sorting
3) Changes in other textural characteristics
● small scale features that arise from the shape (sphericity, roundness) and orientation of
individual grains and surface texture (polished or frosted)
4) Changes in structure (large-scale features such as cross-bedding)

Steps in recognition of Stratification

❖ Stratification must be recognized easily.
❖ Changes in the material (compositional, textural or structural) are the best criteria.
❖ The steps:
1) Determine the prominent direction of parting
2) Confirm it by the discovery of actual differences in rock composition and texture.
3) Measuring a Stratigraphic Section with a Jacob’s Staff
Confusion of the Recognition of stratification
❖ Weathering which results as color changes along the weathering surface might be confused by the geologist in
the recognition of bedding surface.
❖ Planar structure and planar orientation might be confused in the recognition of bedding surfaces.

Fissility
❖ Fissility is the ability or tendency of a rock to split along flat planes of weakness (“parting surfaces”).
❖ These planes of weakness are oriented parallel to stratification in sedimentary rocks.
❖ Some rocks of splitting easily into thin layers along closely spaced, roughly planar, and approx. parallel surfaces,
such as bedding planes in shale; Its presence distinguishes shale from mudstone.

Cleavage
❖ Cleavage: a type of planar rock feature that develops as a result of deformation and metamorphism.
❖ The degree of deformation and metamorphism along with rock type determines the kind of cleavage feature
that develops.
❖ A pervasive, parallel foliation (layering) of fine-grained platy minerals (chlorite, mica) in a direction
perpendicular to the direction of maximum stress.
❖ Found in the rocks slate and phyllite
❖ Cleavage is a type of secondary foliation associated with fine grained rocks.
❖ For coarser grained rocks, schistosity is used to describe secondary foliation.

Foliation
❖ Foliation: planar arrangement of structural or textural features in any rock type, but particularly that resulting
from the alignment of constituent mineral grains of a metamorphic rock of the regional variety along straight or
wavy planes.
❖ Foliation often occurs parallel to original bedding.
 Attitude of stratification
❖ Original attitude: In stratigraphy or in structural geology, the stratification of sedimentary rocks is assumed to be
horizontal.
❖ Deposition takes place with the arrival of material on a surface or floor.
❖ Deposition takes place by:
1) Chemical growth
2) Mechanical setting of particles
❖ The attitude of stratification is controlled by this surface and the direction in which gravity pulls the particles.
❖ When the deposition begins the irregularities on the surface are evened out and the stratification tends to
approach the horizontal more and more.
❖ Original dip (Primary dip):is the dip of a layer at the time it was deposited.

Later changes in attitude

❖ A layer once produced may be subjected to further tilting or warping
❖ If more than one kind of material is present in variable thickness, compaction or other consolidation may cause
differential warping of layers.
❖ differential compaction of shale, producing appreciable dips in the shale on the flanks of the other rock bodies.
❖ Differential subsidence of the basin
❖ Submarine slumping and gliding.
❖ Final modifications are caused by tectonic deformations. Folds and faults form.
❖ This structural modification changes the attitude of layers.
Slumping
❖ A slump is a form of mass wasting that occurs when a unconsolidated materials or a rock layer moves a short
distance down a slope.
❖ Movement is characterized by sliding along a concave-upward or planar surface.

Special varieties of stratification

❖ Cross-stratification is defined as the layers of homogeneous or gradational lithology deposited at an angle to the
original dip of the formation.
❖ The angle between the cross-strata of adjacent sets ranges up to 35oin exceptional cases but is rarely over 20o.
❖ Cross-stratification occurs in sand-size and silt-size material, locally in gravel, very rarely in clay-size material.
❖ Cross-beds commonly occur in sets.
❖ Cross-bedding in sets less than about 5 cm thick is called small-scale cross-bedding; that in sets thicker than 5 cm
is large-scale cross-bedding.

Types of cross-stratification
❖ There are two types of cross-stratification:
a) Tabular/Planar cross strata
b) Trough (lenticular) cross-strata

a. Tabular/Planar cross-bedding
❖ Consists of cross-bedded units are broad in lateral dimensions with respect to set thickness and have:
1) planar bounding surfaces (horizontal subparallel bedding planes) or
2) sets of strata showing no cross stratification
❖ The foreset laminae of tabular cross-beds are
1) Commonly planar
2) Curved laminae that have a tangential relationship to the basal surface
❖ Tabular cross-bedding is formed mainly by the migration of large-scale ripples and dunes.
❖ Individual beds range in thickness from a few tens of centimeters to a meter or more (up to 10 m).
 [Link] cross-bedding
❖ Consists of cross-bedded units in which one or both bounding surfaces are curved.
❖ The units are trough-shaped sets (concave upward) and parallel to at least part of the bottom of the sets.
❖ Rest on the truncated edges of the underlying sets and their cross-strata are themselves truncated beneath
overlying sets.
❖ Trough cross-bedding can originate both by migration of small current ripples, which produces small-scale cross-
bed sets, or by migration of large-scale ripples.
❖ Trough cross-bedding formed by migration of large-scale ripples commonly ranges in thickness to a few tens of
centimeters and in width from less than 1 m to more than 4m.

REPETITIVE STRATIFICATION
❖ The sequence of strata sometimes shows a consistent repetition of two or more kinds of rock, alternating
monotonously through the considerable thickness.
❖ These strata are said to be cyclic and they are the product of rhythmic changes in the environment.
❖ Types of Repetitive stratification
a) Graded-bedding
b) Varve
c) Cyclothems
d) Megacyclothems

a. Graded bedding
❖ Graded beds are sedimentation units characterized by distinct vertical gradations in grain size.
❖ They range in thickness from a few centimeters to a few meters or more and commonly have sharp basal
contacts.
❖ Beds that show gradation from coarser particles at the base to finer particles at the top have normal grading.

❖ Normal graded bedding can form by several processes; however, the origin of most graded beds in the
geological record has been attributed to spasmodic turbidity currents.
❖ Differences in the rate at which particles of different sizes settle from suspension during the waning stages of
turbidity flow appear to account for grading.

❖ Coarser particles may be anything from very fine sandstone to coarse conglomerate. They are typically very
poorly sorted as to both size and composition. Silt and clay may be found together with these coarser materials.
❖ Upper part contains only silt and clay.
❖ As the turbidity current slows, larger grains settle first, followed by progressively finer grains.
b. Varves
❖ Varves are known as annual layering (seasonal layering).
❖ The typical case is that of deposition in a proglacial lake (Glacio-lacustrine/lake environment).
❖ During summer, the material is brought into the lake by meltwater and steady turbidity currents form.
❖ Coarser material (rarely coarser than sand) settles to the bottom however fine material is held in suspension.
❖ Light colored laminae
❖ During winter, fine material remains suspended (cold-water-viscosity) and it settles very slowly (like graded
bedding).
❖ Dark colored laminae
❖ Ideally one coarse and fine lamina will represent one year.
❖ Ideally one light and dark lamina will represent one year.
❖ In other examples of varves are laminations in anhydrite and Rhythmic laminations in carbonates.

c. Cyclothems
❖ A succession of strata is deposited during a single cycle of deposition.
❖ These sedimentary successions usually occur repeatedly, one above the other.
❖ A much larger-scale form of repetitive stratification is the cyclothem.
❖ In this type, more than 2 lithologic units form a regular repetition.
❖ Typically, Cyclothems are more or less 15-20m.
 Week 5 ‘‘Unconformities’’
❖ Unconformity: is the temporal break in a stratigraphic sequence resulting from a change in regime that caused
deposition to cease for a considerable span of time.
❖ Unconformities in sequences of strata represent times of non-deposition and/or erosion that encompass long
periods of geologic time (millions to hundreds of millions of years).
❖ An interval of time not represented by strata is called a hiatus.
❖ These gaps vary in magnitude from the short span of time (less than 1 my), to great breaks (hundreds of my).

❖ Uplift leads to Erosion that causes the loss of some of the previously formed record.
❖ Unconformity is a HIATUS representing a certain span of time.
 Types of Unconformity
❖ Three steps to evaluate the unconformity:
1) Recognition of the unconformity
2) Determination the magnitude
3) Evaluation the importance
❖ There are four types of unconformities:
1) Nonconformity
2) Angular Unconformity
3) Disconformity
4) Paraconformity

1. Nonconformity
❖ Nonconformity: Stratified rocks rest upon non-stratified rocks, either igneous or metamorphic rocks.

Identifying nonconformities
❖ To have a nonconformity type of unconformities we must have two signs:
1) No contact metamorphism (Chilled / Baked margins)
2) Pebbles of the igneous/metamorphic rocks in the overlying units.
 2. Angular unconformity
❖ Angular Unconformity: An angular discordance separates two units of stratified rocks.
❖ Unconformity surface originally must be horizontal. It must be tilted later.

Identifying Angular Unconformity

❖ To have an Angular type of unconformities Unconformity surface originally must be horizontal.
❖ It must be tilted later

❖ Note: The angle of discordance does not indicate the relative importance of the hiatus.
❖ The discordance may reach any angle up to 90o (a) or the folds flatten out (f) the discordance declines even
though the real hiatus does not decrease.
❖ The angle and the much tilting is related to tectonic activity strength and not related to the hiatus too.
 3. Disconformity
❖ Disconformity: All strata are parallel but the contact between two units is an uneven erosional surface.
❖ The surface of unconformity is an old erosion surface of appreciable relief. There was erosion.

Identifying disconformity
❖ To have a disconformity type of unconformities we study the erosional relief at the contact.
❖ Where the surface of unconformity cuts across beds, it is evident that uplift and erosion have occurred during
the hiatus.
❖ Relief makes the unconformity impressive. The relief is limited by the amount of the uplift and the activity of
erosional agent (stream). (In most cases, the ultimate base level for rivers is sea level.)
❖ So during a very short time you may have an impressive relief and this make you think that there is a very
important unconformity.
❖ In conformable rock sequences, an unconformity may sometimes be recognized by the systematic appearance
(or disappearance) of units at a given contact over a large region.

4. Paraconformity
❖ Paraconformity: The beds are parallel and the contact is a simple bedding plane. So the evidence of a break is
not obvious.
❖ There was no erosion, just non-deposition.

Identifying Paraconformities
❖ Paraconformities must be identified on the basis of a gap in the rock record (because of non-deposition or
erosion) as determined from paleontologic evidence such as absence of faunal zones or abrupt faunal changes.
Regional beveling of formations or of faunal zones
❖ In conformable rock sequences, an unconformity may sometimes be recognized by the systematic appearance
(or disappearance) of units at a given contact over a large region.

Erosional surface recognition

❖ There are three signs to identify erosion surface:
1) Physical form of the surface change
a) Irregularities
b) Mounds
c) Crevices
d) Caves
2) Evidence of weathering of the rock below before deposition of the rock above
a) Paleosol / Old soil (paleosoil) profile
b) Bauxite
c) Fire clay (used in the manufacture of creamics)
d) Calichified surfaces (Caliche)
e) Silicified surfaces
3) The abrupt truncation of structural features
a) Joints
b) Folds
c) Faults
d) Dykes

a. Paleosol
❖ Paleosol is a fossilized soil. Note that this does not necessarily mean that it has been lithified, merely that it has
been preserved by burial, perhaps by volcanic ash, or a lava flow, or eolian sediment or whatever.
❖ Paleosols will also typically show distinctive signs of biological activity, such as animal burrows and casts, and
roots or root casts.

b. Bauxite
❖ Bauxite is formed as a residual product by chemical weathering of rocks containing aluminium silicates.
❖ Bauxite is a rock formed from a reddish clay material called laterite soil and is most commonly found in tropical
or subtropical regions.
❖ Bauxite is primarily comprised of aluminum oxide compounds (alumina), silica, iron oxides and titanium dioxide.
Bauxite ore is the world's main source of aluminum.
 c. Fireclays
❖ Fireclay, a clay that can withstand high temperatures.
❖ Fireclays are sedimentary mudstones that occur as the seatearths (underclay) represent the fossil soils on which
coal-forming vegetation once grew and are distinguished from associated sediments by the presence of rootlets
and absence of bedding.
❖ Fireclays are, therefore, mainly confined to coal-bearing strata and are commonly named after the overlying
coal seam.

d. Caliche
❖ Caliche is a sedimentary rock, a hardened natural cement of calcium carbonate that binds other materials—such
as gravel, sand, clay, and silt.
❖ A crust of coarse sediments or weathered soil rich in calcium carbonate.
❖ It forms when lime-rich groundwater rises to the surface by capillary action and evaporates into a crumbly
powder, forming a tough, indurated sheet called calcrete.
❖ Caliche typically occurs in desert or semi-arid areas.

e. Silicified surfaces
❖ Silicified surfaces shows erosion by the Karstic surface.
❖ Karstic surface are dissolution cavities.

Paleontological evidence
❖ The final and the only criterion that gives quantitative results for the large unconformities.
❖ The faunal breaks prove a hiatus and at the same time indicate its temporal value by placing the beds above and
below in widely different divisions of the geologic column.
❖ However, an abrupt faunal break is no evidence of a hiatus. It may be due to a change in bottom ecology
without interruption of the deposition.

Diastem
❖ Short breaks due to non-deposition and/or to sublevation of loose sediment on the sea floor are called
diastems.
❖ An unconformity records a change in the overall conditions of deposition, commonly involving, at least regional
uplift and erosion.
❖ Diastems, on the contrary, are smaller breaks resulting from the normal changes that occur without any basic
change in the general regimen.
 Significance of Unconformities
❖ Many stratigraphic successions are bounded by unconformities, indicating that these successions are incomplete
records of past sedimentation.
❖ Unconformities do not only show that some part of the stratigraphic record is missing, but they also indicate
that an important geologic event took place during the time period (hiatus) represented by the unconformity.
❖ an episode of uplift and erosion or, less likely, an extended period of non-deposition and subsidence.

❖ We notice in the picture above that there is no evidence for erosion at the non-conformity part so the professor
said we can’t call it a non-conformity for sure.
 Week 6 ‘‘DEPOSITIONAL ENVIRONMENTS’’
How Do We Recognize Ancient Depositional Environments?
❖ To identify depositional environments, geologists look for clues like detectives.
❖ To identify a depositional environment Geologists examine:
1) Grain size
2) Composition
3) Sorting
4) Bed-surface marks
5) Cross bedding
6) Fossils
❖ Geological clues can tell us if the sediment was deposited by ice, strong currents, waves, or quiet water, and in
some cases can provide insight into the climate at the time of deposition.
❖ With experience, geologists can examine a succession of beds and determine if it accumulated on a river
floodplain, along a beach, in shallow water just offshore, or on the deep ocean floor.

MAKING INTERPRETATIONS
❖ Environmental interpretations based on Three different kinds of things:
1) Study of modern environments (Law of uniformitarianism)
2) Inferences about the results of known sedimentary processes.
3) Inferences about the causes of features seen in the ancient rocks.
❖ What you can look for in a sediment rock or a sedimentary bed that might tell you something about depositional
environment:
1) Grain size
2) Grain shape
3) Grain surface texture (smooth, rough, etc.)
4) Grain fabric (grain orientation)
5) Sedimentary structures (ripple marks, mudcracks, etc.)
6) Composition (siliciclastic; carbonate, evaporite, coal, chert)
7) Fossils (body fossils, trace fossils)
8) Stratification (planar/horizontal bedding, crossbedding, etc.)
9) Sediment-body geometry/architecture
 ENVIRONMENTS OF DEPOSITION
❖ There are three environments of deposition:
1) Physical environment
2) Chemical environment
3) Biological environment

1. Physical environment
❖ The physical environment is characterized by static and dynamic elements.
❖ Static physical elements include
1) Basin geometry
2) Depositional materials (such as siliciclastic gravel, sand and mud)
3) Water depth
4) Temperature
❖ Dynamic physical elements include factors such as
1) Energy
2) Flow direction of wind, water and ice
3) Rainfall and snowfall which influence currents and waves.
2. Chemical environment
❖ The chemical characteristics of the environment (salinity, pH, Eh, and carbon dioxide and oxygen content of
waters) control chemical processes such as mineral precipitation and solution.
3. Biological environment
❖ The biological aspects of the environment can be considered to encompass both the activities of organisms
(plant growth, burrowing, boring, sediment ingestion, and extraction of silica and calcium carbonate from water
to form skeletal materials) and the presence of organic remains as depositional materials
 SEDIMENTARY DEPOSITIONAL ENVIRONMENTS
❖ Sedimentary depositional environment is defined as “A part of the earth’s surface which is physically,
chemically, and biologically distinct from adjacent areas.”
❖ A sedimentary environment is characterized by a unique set of physically, chemically, and biologically processes
at a specified rate and intensity.
❖ A change in one variable may cause changes in all the others.
❖ Sedimentary depositional environment describes the combination of physical and/or chemical and/or biological
processes associated with the deposition of a particular type of sediment and, therefore, the rock types that will
be formed after lithification, if the sediment is preserved in the rock record.
❖ Environments associated with particular rock types or associations of rock types can be matched to existing
analogues.
❖ Types of Sedimentary Environments:
1) Non-Marine Environments
a) Fluvial Environment
I. Meandering River Deposits
II. Braided River Deposits
III. Alluvial Fan Deposits
b) Desert Environment
c) Lake / Lacustrine Environment
d) Glacial Environment
2) Marine Environments
a) Neritic (Continental-shelf) Environment
b) Oceanic (Pelagic) Environment
3) 3. Mixed Environments
a) Beach (Low-open shore) Environment
b) Shore-Lagoon Environment
c) Delta Environment
d) Reef Environment
Week 7 ‘‘Non-Marine Environments: Fluvial Environment "1"
(FLUVIAL ENVIRONMENTS)
❖ In fluvial environments Most important agent of transport is water.
❖ Characteristics of fluvial environments
1) Gradient
2) Discharge
3) Sediment supply and type
4) Setting (climate and tectonics)

❖ Types of fluvial environments:

1) Meandering streams
2) Braided streams
3) Alluvial fans

1. Meandering River
❖ Characteristics of Meandering River deposits:
1) Channel: Sinuous single channel
2) Gradient: Low gradient
3) Sediment load: fine sediment load (mixed and suspended load)
4) Discharge: Moderate to high discharge
5) Flow: Straight-line helical / transverse spiral flow
6) Migration: Lateral and downstream migration of meanders
7) Channel cut-offs: result in oxbow lakes
8) End: Ends in delta systems
❖ Main morphological features of a meandering river:

❖ Deposition occurs on the point bar on the inner side of a bend while erosion occurs on the opposite cut bank.
❖ Levees form when flood waters rapidly deposit sediment close to the bank and crevasse splays are created when
the levee is breached.

❖ Current is going the fastest on the erosional side of the channel.

The formation of the channel
❖ The fastest currents shift from side-to-side in a river.
❖ This ends up creating a secondary cork-screw current within the river called a helical flow.
❖ The helical flow pushes the highest velocity currents down along outer bank.
❖ Outer bank thus sees strongest flow parallel and perpendicular to main river flow.
❖ This causes lots of scouring (erosion).
❖ The helical flow also helps carry previously eroded sediment toward the inside of the bend, where water
velocities are lower and thus allow sediment deposition.

Meandering river deposits

❖ There are three types of deposits formed by meandering revers:
1) Channel deposits
a) Channel lag deposits
b) Point bar deposits
c) Channel-fill deposits
2) Bank deposits
a) Natural levee deposits
b) Crevasse-splay deposits
3) Flood plains
1. Channel deposits
❖ They are sediment deposits formed mainly from the activity of river channels.
❖ Types of channels deposits:
a) Channel lag deposits
b) Point bar deposits
c) Channel-fill deposits
a. Channel lag deposits
❖ In rivers, the coarser sediments (gravels and pebbles) lag behind while the sand moves as bed loads.
❖ These coarse sediments represent residual concentration and accumulate as discontinuous lenticular patches in
the deeper parts of the channel.
❖ Such deposits never form thick layers, and they are discontinuous.
❖ They occupy the lowest part of a channel or point-bar sequence.

b. Point Bar Deposits

❖ Characteristics of point bar deposits:
1) Capped by fine mud (flood plain mud)
2) Having Low-flow velocity
3) Planar lamination and large-scale trough crossbedding
❖ As water flows, it deposits sediment on banks that lie on the insides of curves (point bar deposits), and erode
the banks on the outside of curves.

c. Channel-fill Deposits
❖ Channel-fill deposits represent sedimentation in stream channels that have been abandoned by a stream
because of cut-off processes and avulsions.
❖ Avulsions: are sudden changes in the meandering river's course, often caused by erosion or sediment
deposition, leading to the formation of new channels and channel fill deposits in the abundant channel.
❖ That means by sudden abandonment of a part of or the whole of a channel course, or by filling due to extreme
increase in rate of sedimentation and reduction in depth.
❖ The abandoned channel are slowly alluviated and sealed at both ends, isolating the old channel loop in the form
of a cut-off lake, or oxbow-lake.
❖ Once it is isolated by formation of cut-off channel, point bar sands and gravels will be buried by silts and muds
carried in by river floods and by sediment slumping in from sides as rain fills up lake.
❖ Channel-fill Deposits Commonly well-laminated and may contain plant remains and various other shells.
2. Bank deposits
❖ They are sediment deposits formed on the riverbanks and are produced during flood periods.
❖ Types of bank deposits:
a) Natural levee deposits
b) Crevasse-splay deposits

a. Natural levee deposits

❖ The formation of natural levees:
1) When a river floods its banks, the water passes from a deep channel to shallow flow.
2) Friction with the bottom becomes relatively a lot more important and thus currently velocities drop
rapidly.
3) As a result, coarser sediment carried in suspension in the turbulent river channel is abruptly dropped on
banks.
4) This creates a ridge or levee of silt-to-sands along the riverbanks.
5) Sands fall nearer the riverbanks, while silts and muds are deposited further away (size-sorting).

b. Crevasse-splay deposits
❖ Floods can cut small channels in levees.
❖ Rapid erosion of levee, plus rush of flood waters produces fan-shaped lobe of sand.
❖ Both bedload and suspended sediments are often coarser than levee deposits and are poorly sorted.
 3. Flood plains
❖ They are fine-grained sediment deposits formed during heavy floods when river water flows over the levees into
the flood plain.
❖ Away from levees and chutes, flow velocities are very slow due to shallow flow and friction with all sorts of
trees, bushes, houses, tractors, etc.
❖ Thus, flood plains are rich in silt, mud, and organic matter (Fertile soil).
❖ Lateral size grading occurs in the flood plain deposits

Channel Migration
❖ The accumulating sediment on the inside of a bend forms the point bar.
❖ The point bar is most often exposed during drier parts of the year, and is under water during floods.

❖ Grain-size vary as a function of depth along the point bar.

❖ Fastest currents in deepest water near outside of bend carries gravels or coarsest sands.
❖ Then fine sediments are in shallower waters.
Typical columnar section of Meandering River deposits

Diagnostic Features of meandering fluvial systems

1) Geometry:
a) Long
b) ribbon-like sand bodies (shoe-string sands)
2) Sequence:
a) Fining upwards from channel lag through point-bar deposits
b) high amount of fine-grained sediments
3) Sedimentology:
a) Gravels to muds
b) planar & trough X-beds
c) ripple X-lamination
d) floodplain deposits
e) fossiliferous
Week 8 ‘‘Non-Marine Environments: Fluvial Environment "2"
2. Braided River Deposits
❖ Braided Rivers exhibit numerous channels that split off and rejoin each other to give a braided appearance.
❖ Consequently, braided rivers usually exist near mountainous regions, especially those with glaciers.
❖ Characteristics of Braided Rivers:
1) Sediment: They typically carry coarse-grained sediment down a steep gradient.
2) Sedimentology:
a) Upstream gravel, downstream coarse sand
b) Abundant tabular and trough cross-stratification
3) Discharge: water discharge tends to be highly variable.
4) Geometry: Elongate, straight lenticular or sheetlike sand bodies
5) Sequence: Fining upward of channel-lag gravels, trough X-bedded sands, tabular cross beds
6) Longitudinal & lateral bars are developed.

Braided River Deposits

❖ Braided River Deposits:
1) Channel deposits.
2) Channel Bar deposits.
 ❖ Deposition of sand and/or gravel occurs mid-channel bars.

Typical columnar section of Braided River deposits

Week 9 ‘‘Non-Marine Environments: Fluvial Environment "3"
3. Alluvial Fan Deposits
❖ Alluvial fan deposits are also called: piedmont deposits or fanglomerates.
❖ Alluvial fans are fan-shaped deposits of water-transported material (alluvium).
❖ They typically form at the base of topographic features where there is a marked break in slope.
❖ Alluvial fans are characterized by an abrupt gradient change –block-faulted mountains.
❖ Consequently, alluvial fans tend to be coarse-grained, especially at their mouths.
❖ At their edges they can be relatively fine-grained.
❖ Modern Fans: fans of sediment that originate in mountain ranges that spread out across valleys.
❖ It's more common in Arid to semi-arid regions.

❖ Piedmont Alluvial Plain deposits: a plain formed by the coalescence of alluvial fans.
Grading of alluvial fans deposits
❖ Upper fan = Coarse grained debris flows
❖ Mid fan = Medium grained debris flow, channel and sheetflood
❖ Lower fan = Fine-grained sheetflood
❖ Upper to lower fans = coarse to fine grained

Diagnostic Features of Alluvial Fans

❖ Geometry:
1) Limited aerial extent
2) Wedge-shaped or Cone-shaped
❖ Sequence:
1) Coarsening upwards
2) cross-bedded sandstone
3) channel lag conglomerate
4) unsorted debris flow
❖ Sedimentology:
1) Fining downward fan
2) Conglomerate & X-bedded sandstone common
 3) unsorted debris flows.

Week 10 ‘‘Non-Marine Environments: Desert Environment"

DESERT ENVIRONMENT
❖ A desert: is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are
hostile for plant and animal life.
❖ The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to the processes of wind erosion.
❖ About one-third of the land surface of the world is arid or semi-arid.
❖ This includes much of the polar regions where little precipitation occurs and which are sometimes called polar
deserts or "cold deserts".
❖ Deserts can be classified by:
1) The amount of precipitation that falls
2) The temperature that prevails.
3) The causes of desertification
4) Their geographical location
❖ Most deserts are characterized by extreme fluctuations in temperature and wind, on both daily and seasonally.
❖ Rainfall occurs rapidly pouring out large amounts of water, during a short time.
❖ Eolian: sedimentary processes are those involving transport and deposition of material by the wind.
❖ Air Wind blowing over the land can pick up dust and sand and carry it large distances.
❖ The capacity of the wind to transport material is limited by the low density of air.

❖ Almost all depositional environments include a component of material that has been blown in as airborne dust,
including the deep marine environments.
❖ Eolian sands deposited in desert environments have distinctive characteristics that range from the microscopic
grain morphology to the scale of cross-stratification.
❖ Recognition of these features provides important paleo-environmental information that can be used in
subsurface exploration because eolian sandstones are good hydrocarbon reservoirs and aquifers.

❖ Sub-environments exist within desert:

1) Alluvial fans
2) Impermanent streams
3) Impermanent saline lakes
4) Sand dune fields
5) Inter-dune areas covered by bare rocks or deflation pavement.
6) Areas around deserts where wind-blown dust (loess) accumulates.

Deposits of desert environment

❖ Deposits of desert environment:
1) Hamada deposits
2) Serir deposits
3) Wadi deposits
4) Desert lake and Inland sabkha deposits
5) Eolian sand deposits
a) Sand dunes
b) Sand drifts or sand shadows
c) Sand sheets
6) Dust or Loess deposits

1. HAMADA DEPOSITS
❖ Characteristics of Hamada deposits
1) Rocky terrain
2) Forms along Vertical cliffs and flat rock surfaces
3) Coarse-grained
4) Angular and unworked material as large boulders (pebbles, etc.).
5) It represents an erosional area in deserts
6) They can be preserved only when they are covered by dune sand.
2. Serir deposits
❖ Characteristics of Serir deposits
1) Stony deserts
2) Forms along more or less horizontal deflation surfaces.
3) Very thin, a maximum thickness of several centimeters.
4) Coarse-sands and pebbles
5) Thin parallel beds extending over long distances
6) Shows Impact marks or broken faces.

3. Wadi deposits
❖ Wadis: are impermanent streams in desert environments.
❖ They are dry most of the time except just after a rain.
❖ The deposition of wadis is very rapid because of a sudden loss of velocity and absorption of water.
❖ Deposits of wadi deposits are conglomeratic in nature (usually poorly sorted gravels and sands).
❖ The nature of the sediment is strongly controlled by the source rock and availability of various grain size.

4. Desert Lake & Inland Sabkha Deposits

❖ Desert basins are basins of inland drainage, where water flows toward the central parts.
❖ Within the deserts there are often very shallow depressions of deflation or tectonic origin.
❖ Water accumulates in such low-lying areas and very shallow lakes are produced which are dry most of the year.
❖ Some of them may be semi-permanent which are called DESERT LAKES.
❖ If areas are covered by water dries up, leaving behind salt-encrusted (evaporate minerals: halite, anhydrite,
gypsum) sediments it is called as Inland Sabkha.
❖ Sources of water are the wadis and seepage of ground water.
5. Eolian Sand Deposits
❖ Sand-sized sediments are probably the most important sediments in the desert environment.
❖ They constitute the major part of the sedimentary sequences in a desert environment.
❖ Large scale sand forms of the desert environments are sub-divided:
a) Sand dunes
b) Sand drifts or sand shadows
c) Sand sheets

a. Sand dune
❖ Sand dune (eolian) deposits typically consist of very fine-grained sandstone (the grain size has to be small
enough to be transported by the wind) that exhibits large-scale cross bedding.

b. Sand drifts or sand shadows

❖ They are sand accumulations caused by fixed obstruction in the path of wind.
❖ These are the bushes, rocks, or boulders, small cliffs or banks of wadis.
c. Sand sheets
❖ Sand sheets: usually very large areas of desert environment, more or less flat in nature.
❖ Slight undulations or small-dune-like features may be present.

6. Dust and Loess

❖ Dust and Loess: Silt and clay size sediments are winnowed from the desert area, kept in suspension for long
periods of time, and blown over long distances.
❖ Windblown dust settles down because of a loss in velocity, or it may be washed down from the air by rain and
kept in place by the grass. These deposits are called loess.
❖ This dust is deposited in adjoining regions (steppes).
❖ Such deposits are devoid of stratification.
❖ Faint lamination may be seen

Recognition of ancient desert deposits

❖ Characteristics of desert ancient deposit:
1) Well-sorted
2) Well-rounded
3) Sand size sediments (even fine-medium sand grains)
4) Lack of silt and clay size sediments
5) Large scale, high angle (30-34˚) cross-stratification
6) Planar-tabular & Trough type cross-stratification
7) Quartz sand grains
8) Frosted grains
9) Red color
Typical columnar section of desert environment
Week 11 ‘‘Non-Marine Environments: Lake (Lacustrine) "
Lake (Lacustrine) Environment
❖ Lakes: are standing water bodies, mostly with fresh water.
❖ There are Temporary (impermanent) lakes and Permanent lakes.
❖ There is also lake filled with saline or brackish water.
❖ Basins or depressions can be created by a variety of mechanisms including:
1) Tectonic movements (faulting, rifting)
2) Glacial processes (ice scouring / ice damming occurs when water builds up behind a blockage of ice. )
3) Land slides
4) Volcanic activity (lava damming)
5) Deflation (wind scouring)
6) Fluvial activities (formation of ox-bow lakes, cut-off processes)

Classification of Lakes
❖ Classification of Lakes by formation place:
1) Lakes Formed by Earth Movement
a) Tectonic lakes
b) Rift valley lakes

2) Lakes Formed by Glaciation

a) Cirque lakes
b) Lakes due to ice damming /terminal moraine
3) Lakes Formed by Volcanic Activity
a) Crater and caldera lakes
b) Lakes due to lava damming

4) Lakes Formed by Erosion

a) Karst lakes
b) Wind-deflated (desertic) lakes (oasis: vaha)

5) Lakes Formed by Deposition

a) Lakes due to cut-off river deposits (oxbow)
b) Man-made lakes
 Water supply
❖ Lakes form where there is a supply of water to a topographic low on the land surface.
❖ They are fed mainly by rivers and lose water by flow out into a river and/or evaporation from the surface.
❖ The balance between inflow - outflow and the rate at which evaporation occurs control the level of water in the
lake and the water chemistry.
❖ Under conditions of high inflow the water level in the lake may be constant, and the water remains fresh.
❖ Low water input coupled with high evaporation rates in an enclosed basin results in the concentration of
dissolved ions, which may be precipitated as evaporites in a perennial/permanent saline lake or when an
ephemeral/impermanent lake dries out.
❖ Lakes are therefore very sensitive to climate and climate change.

❖ Lake level = balance of evaporation and precipitation.

❖ Lake chemistry = humidity and run off water chemistry

Lake environments
❖ Lake environment is showing the following factors:
1) Waves
2) High sedimentation rate
3) Organic processes (skeletal precipitation, respiration/photosynthesis, bioturbation, plant remains)
4) Living organisms = algae, pelecypods, ostracods

Lake Deposits Classification

❖ Lake deposits are classified into two major groups:
1) Clastic type (open): siliciclastic
2) Chemical type (closed)
a) Carbonates
b) Evaporites
❖ There are numerous transitional types between these types.
❖ Lake level of closed lakes can vary with climate such that lake margin can dry out.
1. Clastic-type Lake Deposits

❖ In the lakes whose level remains stable:

1) The shore are open to waves
2) The fine-sediments are swept out into deeper water, sand and gravel tend to remain and form beaches.
3) Sorting will be fairly good to very good.
4) Sand and gravel layers may alternate.
5) Cross-stratification will be on a rather small scale and will generally dip lakeward.
❖ All coarser materials carried by the stream dumped quickly, as the stream current is checked by the standing
water of the lake.
❖ Delta can be formed.
❖ Delta consists of topset, strongly dipping foreset and bottomset parallel to the lake floor.
❖ The topsets are an extension of normal river deposits out over the growing delta.
❖ The bottomsets are thickened lake-bottom deposits underneath.
❖ The foresets with their original dip are sharply set off from the others.
 2. Chemical-type Lake Deposits
❖ The chemical composition of lake water depends mainly on the dissolved and suspended material brought into
lake.
❖ When non-clastic material is so important, the alternate laminae which is observed between sand and clay
deposits may be dominated by CaCO3 and organic matter.
❖ In semi-arid climates, CaCO3 may become an important fraction of the total lake deposits, forming thick layers.
(Oolitic limestones, algal reefs, and tufa deposits).
❖ In more arid climates, other salts may be precipitated in the bottom deposits.
❖ These lake deposits may grade into sabkha type of desert environments. (Anhydrite, Halite, Gypsum).

Clastic to Chemical
❖ The differences in sedimentation may be explained by the changes from clastic to chemical deposition and vice
versa are the result of variations in the supply of terrigenous clastic material and this is in turn determined by
tectonic or climatic factors, or fluctuations in lake level.
❖ Climate plays an important role in determining the supply of clastic sediments to lake environments.
❖ Under more humid conditions, the increased run-off on the land surface results in more sediment being carried
by rivers.
❖ Alternation of beds of limestone with beds of mudstone or sandstone may therefore be due to periodic climatic
fluctuations of alternating drier and wetter conditions.
❖ However, other mechanisms can also cause fluctuations in the supply of detritus.
❖ Relief: tectonic uplift of the landmass can also increase the sediment supply by increasing relief and hence the
rate of erosion.
❖ Fluctuations in lake level may therefore result in alternations between limestone and mudstone/sandstone
deposition.
 Lake Deposits Vs Shallow-Marine Deposits
❖ Many of the processes that occur in seas also occur in lakes:
1) Deltas form where rivers enter the lake
2) Beaches form along the margins
3) Turbidity (density) currents flow down to the water bottom and waves act on the surface.
❖ There are, however, important differences with marine settings:
1) The fauna and flora are distinct
2) The chemistry of lake waters varies from lake to lake and certain physical processes of temperature and
density stratification are unique to lacustrine environments.
 Ancient Lake Deposits
❖ Well-developed lake deposits are of only minor importance in ancient stratigraphic records.
❖ The reason may be that lake deposits are difficult to recognize.
❖ Lake deposits can be easily differentiated from fluvial deposits.
❖ Sometimes it is difficult to differentiate lake deposits from shallow marine deposits, especially those of non-tidal
seas.
❖ In such cases, paleontological evidences are very valuable tool for the distinction of these environments.
❖ Isotope composition of freshwater are different from isotope compositions of marine carbonates and
evaporites.
 Week 12 ‘‘Non-Marine Environments: Glacial "
Glacial Environments
❖ Glacial: permanent accumulations of ice and snow
❖ Ice, water and air are clearly fluid media, but we can also consider ice as a fluid because over long time periods it
moves across the land surface, albeit very slowly.
❖ Ice is therefore a rather high viscosity fluid that can transport large amounts of clastic debris.
❖ Movement of detritus by ice is significant in and around polar ice caps and in mountainous areas in the low
latitudes with glaciers.
❖ The volume of material moved by ice has been very great at times of extensive glaciation.
 Environmental settings
❖ All environments in contact with glacial ice
❖ Basal or subglacial zone: bottom surface of glacier
❖ Supraglacial zone: top surface of glacier
❖ Englacial zone: interior of glacier
❖ Proglacial zone: glacial meltwater (fluvial, lacustrine, marine)
❖ Ice-rafting: debris transported in floating ice blocks (iceberg)
❖ Dropstone: debris dropped from melting icebergs

Glacial Deposits
❖ There are two types of glacial deposits:
1) Unstratified deposits
2) Stratified deposits

1. Unstratified deposits
❖ They are often called basal deposits, moraines, boulder clay or till.
❖ Boulder clay: glacial deposits consisting of striated, subangular boulders of various sizes embedded in stiff, hard
pulverized clay.
❖ They are unsorted deposits. Grain size vary from boulders or large blocks to silt and clay.
❖ No stratification is developed.
❖ They are deposits directly laid down by ice at the bottom and represent essentially the basal moraine.
2. Stratified deposits
❖ Sorting is better than the associated unstratified deposits, especially silt and clay is rather low.
❖ Some stratification is developed.
❖ The stratification represents englacial and surface moraines which have been laid down during rapid melting of
ice.
❖ Some of them are laid down by subglacial streams.
❖ Melt water plays an important role in the deposition of stratified deposits.
❖ Stratified deposits are distinguished as:
1) Proglacial deposits: Deposits made beyond the limit of glacier.
a) Outwash plain
b) Glacial marine (glaciomarine) deposits
c) Glacial lake deposits (Varves)
2) Ice-contact stratified deposits: Water-laid sediments deposited in contact with glacial ice. They are
interbedded or included in non-stratified deposits.
a) Eskers
b) Kames
c) Drumlins
❖ Esker: are more or less long, curvilinear, wall-like features made up of glacial deposits. They are parallel to the
direction of the glaciers.
❖ Kame: A mound composed of gravel or sand, whose form is the result of original deposition modified by setting
during the melting of glacier ice against or upon which the sediment accumulated.
❖ Drumlin: Oval or elongated hill formed by the streamlined movement of glacial ice across rock debris. They are
generally found in broad lowland regions.

Evidence of glacial activity

❖ As a result of moving ice landscape changes forming:
1) U-shaped valley
2) hanging valley
3) lakes
❖ Erosional features:
1) Striations
2) grooved rock surfaces
3) polished surfaces
4) crescentic marks
❖ Depositional features
1) Drumlins
2) kames and eskers
❖ Presence of scattered boulders and blocks that are foreign to the place (erratic blocks)
❖ River sediments with glacial material (outwash plain)
Glaciomarine Sedimentation
Typical columnar section
Week 13 ‘‘Marine Environments: Neritic (Continental-shelf)"
HYDROLOGICAL CYCLE
❖ The water cycle (hydrological cycle) involves the continuous movement of water on, above and below the
surface of the Earth.

The difference between pure water and seawater

❖ One of the most obvious differences is that seawater contains dissolved substances that give it a distinctly salty
taste.
❖ These dissolved substances are not simply NaCl (table salt) – they include various other salts, metals, and even
dissolved gases.
❖ Salts dissolved in seawater are dissociated into their ions; the predominant ions are chloride and sodium; other
significant ions are magnesium, sulfate, calcium, and potassium.
❖ Salinity: is the total amount of dissolved material in water.
❖ More specifically Salinity is the ratio of the mass of dissolved substances to the mass of the water sample.
❖ The salinity of seawater is defined as the total amount by weight of dissolved salts in one kilogram of seawater.
❖ Seawater has a salinity of roughly 35,000 ppm, equivalent to 35 grams of salt per one liter (or kilogram) of
water.
❖ Seawater is saline water.
❖ Salinity Levels:
1) Fresh water (< 0.05%)
2) Brackish water (0.05–3%)
3) Saline water (3–5%) 🡪 Seawater
4) Brine (> 5% up to 26%-28% max)
❖ All of the atmospheric gases are found in solution in sea water, especially:
1) Methane
2) Carbon monoxide
3) Hydrogen sulfide
4) Hydrogen
❖ Gases in sea water reveal the ways in which a variety of physical, chemical, and biological processes interact in
the oceans and coastal environments.
❖ These gases are both produced by and consumed by various types of organisms.
❖ The marine environment can be a source of these gases to the atmosphere.
❖ Lons are added to ocean water by:
1) River discharge
2) Volcanic eruptions
3) Hydrothermal activity at the mid-ocean ridge
❖ Lons are removed from ocean water by:
1) Adsorption and precipitation
2) Sea spray
3) Biologic processes
4) Hydrothermal activity at the mid-ocean ridge
Precipitation
❖ A precipitation reaction occurs when an ionic substance comes out of solution and forms an insoluble (or slightly
soluble) solid.
❖ The solid which comes out of solution is called a precipitate.
❖ This can occur when two soluble salts (ionic compounds) are mixed and form an insoluble one—the precipitate.
❖ The emergence of the insoluble solid from solution is called precipitation.
❖ As seawater evaporates or freezes, eventually solid phases such as aragonite (CaCO3), calcite (CaCO3), etc. will
precipitate.
❖ When precipitation happens, the fixed ratios of various soluble material will change.

MARINE ENVIRONMENTS
❖ Marine environments are classified mainly as
1) Neritic environment
2) Oceanic environment
❖ Marine environments may be also classified according to the sea floor:
1) Intertidal region
2) Continental shelf
3) Continental slope
4) Abyssal plain
5) Trenches and deeps
❖ Marine environments may be also classified according to the depth zones:
1) Littoral zone
2) Bathyal zone
3) Abyssal zone
4) Hadal zone
❖ Littoral Zone: the area between high and low sea levels /tide levels.
❖ Neritic Zone: extends from the shoreline (lowest tide level) to shelf break.
❖ Oceanic Zone: extends from shelf break and encompasses the deeper part of the ocean.
❖ Continental shelf: extends seaward from the shoreline at a gentle slope of about 1˚ to a point where a
perceptible increase in rate of slope takes place (=shelf break)
❖ Continental slope: descends from the shelf break to the deep seafloor with a typical slope of about 4˚. The foot
of the continental slope merges with continental rise.
❖ Continental rise: is gently sloping surface created by coalescing submarine fans at the base of the slope.
❖ Abyssal plain: continental rise passes gradually into the nearly flat floor of the ocean basin.
 ❖ Marine environment can be Classified by origin:
1) Lithogenous (derived from land)
a) Gravel, sand, silt, clay
b) Ions in solution
2) Biogenous (derived from organisms)
a) Shells, animals, and algal structures
3) Hydrogenous or Authigenic (derived from water)
a) Forming chemically in the ocean
4) Cosmogenous (derived from outer space)
a) Cosmic «dust»

Neritic Environments
❖ The neritic environment is defined between the wave base and the “break in slope” at the edge of the
continental shelf.
❖ The deposition on the shelf cannot be characterized by a single type model.
❖ Two types of sedimentation may be occurred on the continental shelf:
1) Clastic type
2) Carbonate type

Clastic type & Carbonate type

❖ The character of the bottom sediments on the shelf & the environment under which deposition is taken place
differs from region to region.
❖ The changes from clastic to carbonate deposition and vice versa are the result of variations in the supply of
terrigenous clastic material and this is in turn determined by tectonic or climatic factors, or fluctuations in sea
level.
❖ Climate plays an important role in determining the supply of sand and mud to shallow marine environments.
❖ Under more humid conditions, the increased run-off on the land surface results in more sediment being carried
by rivers, which are themselves more vigorous and hence deliver more sediment to the adjacent seas.
❖ A change to a wetter climate on an adjacent landmass will therefore result in increased deposition of sand and
mud, which will suppress carbonate production on a shelf.
❖ The alternation of beds of limestone with beds of mudstone or sandstone may therefore be due to periodic
climatic fluctuations of alternating drier and wetter conditions.
❖ However, other mechanisms can also cause fluctuations in the supply of detritus from the continent to parts of
the shelf.
❖ Relief: tectonic uplift of the landmass can also increase the sediment supply by increasing relief and hence the
rate of weathering and erosion.
❖ Tectonic activity can also result in subsidence of the shelf, which will make the water deeper across the shelf
area: a relative sea-level rise will have the same effect.
❖ With increased water depth, more of the shelf area will be ‘starved’ of mud and sand, allowing carbonate
sedimentation to occur in place of clastic deposition.
❖ Fluctuations in sea level may therefore result in alternations between limestone and mudstone/sandstone
deposition.
Clastic-type Neritic Environments
❖ In the clastic type of deposition normally there is a transitional zone between the shelf deposits and the deposits
of the mixed environments.
❖ Clastic /detrital continental shelf sediments may be composed of:
1) The sediments in volcanic origin, eolian, glacial, fluvial origin.
2) The sediments with authigenic minerals like glauconite, chamosite
3) The subaqueous weathering of both hard and soft materials
4) The biogenic sediments (mainly carbonate shells and tests).
❖ Wave base: the plane to which waves may degrade the bottom in shallow water or the depth at which wave
action ceases to stir the sediments.

❖ In deeper water, where wave energy does not stir the sea floor, finer sediment can accumulate (under the wave
base).
❖ Because the water here may be only meters to a few tens of meters deep, geologists refer to this depositional
setting as a shallow-marine environment.
❖ Clastic sedimentary layers that accumulate in Clastic-type Neritic Environments tend to be:
1) Fine-grained,
2) Well-sorted,
3) Well-rounded silt
4) Inhabited by a great variety of organisms (such as mollusca and worms).
❖ If you see beds of siltstone and mudstone containing marine fossils, you may be looking at shallow-marine
clastic deposits.
❖ Particle size in clastic sedimentary rocks reflects the ENERGY of the depositional environment.
❖ At Nearshore waves crashing on beaches with fairly high energy which is causing a coarse textured deposits
(pebbles/sand).
❖ For Offshore it is under Wave base progressively with lower energy environments which causes a progressively
finer textured deposits (medium sand - fine sand - silt/mud - clay - carbonates and beyond land derived
sedimentation in shallow tropical oceans).
❖ In the transitional zone, if sand and mud are available and if conditions are suitable for their deposition, there
may be a graded condition.
❖ This grading may be represented by clayey silt to silty sand.
❖ These deposits are finer grained than coastal sand, but coarser-grained than the shelf mud sediments.
❖ The actual depth of the transition zone depends upon the energy of the coast.
❖ The lower the energy of the coast the lesser the depth of the transition zone.
Carbonate-type Neritic Environments
❖ When the amount of land-derived sediment is so small, the carbonate shoreline facies and carbonate shelf
deposits develop.
❖ These typically occur a broad continental shelf where the hinterland is so low (and sometimes arid) that no
clastic detritus is available.
❖ In shallow marine settings relatively free of clastic sediment, warm, clear, nutrient-rich water hosts an
abundance of organisms.
❖ Carbonate precipitation is thermodynamically favored at high temperature and low pressure.
❖ Their shells, which consist of carbonate minerals, make up most of the sediment that accumulates.
❖ The carbonate shoreline grades into an open marine shelf where calcareous or argillaceous deposits form.
❖ Within carbonate shelf sequences, it is possible to define 3 major zones which pass laterally into one another
from the center of the basin to its margin in the following manner:
The development of bars/ shoals/ barrier islands
❖ Shoals/Bars forms where the waves are breaking, because the breaking waves set up a shoreward current with a
compensating counter-current along the bottom.
❖ Sand carried by the offshore moving bottom current is deposited where the current reaches the wave break.
❖ Explanations for the development of bars/ shoals/ barrier islands have been proposed by numerous scientists
for over more than 150 years.
❖ No single theory can explain the development of all barriers distributed extensively along the world's coastlines.
❖ They can be grouped into major theories:
1) offshore bar theory
2) spit accretion theory.

1. Offshore bar theory

❖ Waves moving into shallow water churned up sand, which was deposited in the form of a submarine bar when
the waves broke and lost much of their energy.
❖ As the bars accreted vertically, they gradually built above sea level, forming barrier islands.

2. Spit accretion theory

❖ Sediment moving in the breaker zone through agitation by waves in longshore drift would construct spits
extending from headlands parallel to the coast.
❖ The subsequent breaching of spits by storm waves would form barrier islands.

Carbonate shelf and shoreline facies

 1. Z-zone (low-energy zone)
❖ In recent arid shorelines (like in Arabian Gulf), wide salt flats (Sabkhas) are developed.
❖ As the sun beat down, capillarity draws Lagoonal brines into pore spaces of the Sabkha carbonates. Here, as the
fluids evaporate and concentrate, they replace the host sediment to form dolomite, gypsum, anhydrite, halite
and other evaporate minerals.
❖ There are also pellets in this carbonate (pelletal limestone).
❖ Pellet: a usually small rounded, or cylindrical the solid waste of particular animals.
❖ The pellets are the waste matter discharged from the body of various marine organisms.

2. Y-zone (high-energy zone)

❖ Shoreward where wave base meets the sea floor turbulent bottom conditions will become active.
❖ Lime mud winnowed away and carbonate shells will be fragmented to skeletal sands.
❖ Oolites may form.
❖ These deposits are piled up into shoals and bars.
❖ Finally, clean-washed carbonate sands are deposited.

3. X-zone (low-energy zone)

❖ In the deeper part of the shelf, below the wave base, finegrained laminated mud will settle out of suspension.
❖ The fauna will generally be preserved in situ and unfragmented.
❖ These conditions may extend over thousands of km2.

Irwin model to the clastic shelf deposits

❖ X zone is represented by shales (low energy)
❖ Y zone is represented by clean-washed sands (high energy)
❖ Z zone is represented by shales (low energy)
 Week 14 ‘‘Marine Environments: Oceanic"
Oceanic environments
❖ Below a 200m, the ocean floor is a region of total darkness, of quiet, and cold.
❖ Even the great storms are not capable of disturbing, moving the sediments at bottom.
❖ Only currents may have a little effect on the bottom sediment.
❖ The spasmodic turbidity currents are an exception, but they operate briefly and locally and at long intervals.
❖ The most important circulation at the bottom of the ocean is created by the cold water currents and the
currents which are formed because of the differences in salinity (salinity currents).
❖ When these currents are confined to narrow passages, they gain sufficient velocity to sublevate and remove fine
sediment or to prevent deposition even at great depth.

Classification of Oceanic Sediments

❖ Sediments settle from water column:
1) Abyssal red clay
2) Biogenous Sediment --- Ooze
3) Turbidites
4) Terrigenous mud
5) Hydrogenous sediments
6) Glaciomarine sediments (rare)
[Link] red clay
❖ It is the most widespread sediment in deep region.
❖ It is found lying almost below 4000m.
❖ The color varies between brick-red and chocolate-brown.
❖ Color from oxidized iron (Fe).
❖ It is extremely fine-grained. Its composition in similar to igneous rocks from which drives, but it differs in
somewhat higher content of Al, Fe, Mn, Mg and lower content of Ca, K, Na.
❖ The source of abyssal red clay may be:
1) Terrigenous sediment of colloidal dimensions (At least 70% clay sized particles from continents)
2) Windblown dust
3) Meteoric dust
4) Volcanic ash

2. Biogenous Sediment --- Ooze

❖ Biogenous Sediment: These sediments contain more than 30 % of hard remains of once-living organisms
(microfossils) in volume.
❖ OOZE the most common microscopic organisms that produce biogenous sediment (fossil remains) are.
❖ Ooze: These sediments contain more than 30 % of shell / test material in volume.
❖ Protists (single-celled organisms) Algae
❖ Calcareous Oozes in low latitudes (warm areas) consisting of single-celled planktonic organisms (planktonic
foraminifera, calcareous nannoplankton)
❖ Calcareous Oozes occurs at depths less than  4000m (CCD=Carbonate Compensation Depth).
❖ Below this P & T conditions are such that calcium carbonate dissolves before it reaches the bottom.
1) Planktonic foraminifera (Globigerina) ooze
2) Pteropod ooze
3) Calcareous nannoplankton (Coccolith) ooze
❖ Siliceous Oozes consist of diatoms and radiolarians skeletons made of silica similar to opal.
❖ After deposition, silica tends to crystallize into chert.
1) Radiolarian ooze
2) Diatom ooze
❖ The distribution of these various type of deposit is controlled primarily by variations in surface water
productivity and the CCD.
❖ CCD =Calcium Compensation Depth: Depth where CaCO3 readily dissolves
❖ This is the depth below which calcite does not accumulate on the ocean floor and corresponds to the level at
which the rate of calcite solution is balanced by the rate of supply. ( 4000m)
❖ Rate of suply = rate at which the shells dissolve
❖ Warm, shallow ocean saturated with calcium carbonate
❖ Cool, deep ocean undersaturated with calcium carbonate
❖ Equilibrium reaction of calcite in water: CaCO3 + H2O + CO2 Ca2+ + 2HCO3

3. Turbidites
Hypothetical stratigraphic sequence that could be developed during fan progradation

❖ C-U: represents thickening and coarsening-upward sequence

❖ F-U: thinning and fining upward sequence
❖ C.T.: classic turbidities
❖ M.S.: massive sandstones
❖ P.S.: pebbly sandstones
❖ CGL: conglomerate
❖ D.F: debris flows
❖ SL.: slumps
Typical columnar section of oceanic environment (turbiditic system=Submarine Fan)
Bouma sequence

❖ Schematic diagram depicting interpretation of Bouma sequence (ABCDE) in terms of distance across basin, and
waning flow conditions.
❖ This suggests that the turbidites beginning with divisions B and C represent deposition from progressively slower
flows, which can be due to increasing distance across basin.
❖ However, the levees of the upper fan environment may also show sequences beginning with divisions B or C.
[Link] mud
❖ Continental slope and deep sea may be covered by fine lead-colored or bluish gray terrigenous mud.
❖ It commonly has a surface film of reddish or brownish color due to the oxidized iron.
❖ When there is a carbonate deposition on the continental shelf in Neritic environment, the lime mud may be
winnowed down over the continental slope and may extend into deep water.
❖ The terrigenous mud is derived from the land and carried to the sea is suspension.
❖ Clay and fine silt settle so slowly that they may require many years to reach the floor.
❖ So the very gentle ocean currents are able to spread fine mud far from land.

5. Hydrogenous sediments
❖ Chemical reactions in the ocean can cause some minerals to precipitate directly from seawater.
❖ Reactions usually happen because of changes in the ocean (P, T, salinity, different fluids, etc.)
❖ Most common Hydrogenous Sediment:
a) Manganese nodules
b) Phosphates
c) Carbonates
d) Metal sulfides

a. Manganese Nodules
❖ Manganese Nodule: Fist-sized lumps of manganese, iron, and other metals, often with layered internal
structure.
 b. Phosphates
❖ Phosphates: Phosphorus-bearing (PO4 -2 ions) Occur beneath areas in surface ocean of very high biological
productivity.

c. Metal Sulfides
❖ Contain: Iron (Fe) • Nickel (Ni) • Copper (Cu) • Zinc (Zn) • Silver (Ag) and Other metals.
❖ It's associated with hydrothermal vents.
❖ Types of vents are warm-water vents, white smokers, black smokers.

6. Glaciomarine sediments (rare)

❖ Glaciomarine deposits Currently forming by ice-rafting (icebergs carrying sediments into ocean).
❖ Dropstone:

Sea floor spreading and sed accumulation

Typical columnar section of oceanic environment (carbonate)

Umber
❖ Umber is a natural brown clay pigment that contains iron and manganese oxides.
❖ Its name derives from the Latin word umbra (shadow) and was originally extracted in Umbria, a mountainous
region of central Italy, but it is found in many parts of the world.
❖ Some of the finest umber comes from Cyprus

Marl
❖ Marl or marlstone is a carbonate-rich mud or mudstone which contains variable amounts of clays and silt.
❖ These typically contain 35–65% clay and 65–35% carbonate

Chalk
❖ Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite.
❖ It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite shells
(coccoliths) shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores. (Calcareous ooze)

Chert
❖ Chert is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline crystals of quartz.
❖ It is typically composed of the petrified remains of siliceous ooze, the biogenic sediment that covers large areas
of the deep ocean floor, and which contains the silicon skeletal remains of diatoms, silicoflagellates, and
radiolarians.
 Week 15 ‘‘Mixed Environments: Beach & Cliff-Shore"
MIXED ENVIRONMENTS
❖ Mixed environments are coastal environments where land meets sea
❖ The zone where land and sea meet is an area of maximum geographic complexity.
❖ This zone is represented by the shore or the littoral zone.
❖ The littoral zone: embracing the area between high and low tide limits, is alternately a part of the land and of
the sea.
❖ Coasts are the areas of interface between the land and the sea, and the coastal environment can comprise a
variety of zones, including coastal plains, beaches, barriers and lagoons.
❖ Variables affecting the development of the mixed environments:
1) Rate of influx of land-derived sediment
2) Tidal regime
3) Current systems and waves
4) Climate
5) Relative movements of land and sea.

❖ Coastlines can be divided on the basis of their morphology, wave energy and sediment budget.
❖ Coastlines can be either:
1) Depositional coastlines
2) Erosional coastlines

1. Depositional coastlines
❖ At depositional coastlines the gradient is normally relatively gentle and a lot of the wave energy is dissipated in
shallow water
❖ provided that there is a supply of sediment, these dissipative coasts can be sites of accumulation of sediment.
❖ All of the features of a marine depositional coast are created by a longshore drift.
❖ Sand spit: where sediments are deposited from a point of land along the direction of the longshore drift.
❖ Bay mouth bar given time may become a bay mouth barrier when the spit extends all the way across a bay.
❖ Tombolo: when a spit extends between an island and the land
❖ Barrier island: when sediments are deposited parallel with the shoreline.

2. Erosional coastlines
❖ Erosional coastlines typically have relatively steep gradients where a lot of the wave energy is reflected back into
the sea from the shoreline.
❖ Both bedrock and loose material may be removed from the coast and redistributed by wave, tide and current
processes.

❖ Given enough time, the headlands (being attacked on both sides by breaking waves) will progressively erode to
produce sea caves, sea arches and sea stacks, respectively.
 Environments Dominated by waves & longshore currents (Cliffed Shores, Beaches)
Cliffed shore environments
❖ If a cliffed shore is made of weak rock, such as sandstone much more material will be supplied in a unit of time.
❖ Gravel (if it is present) and sand accumulate to form a beach.
❖ If longshore drift currents are flowing in one direction the sand derived from this high shore environment will
migrate perhaps out of the source area into a low shore (beach) environment.
❖ If a cliffed shore is a hard rock, a talus or narrow boulder beach may form as pocket beaches between
headlands.

Low open shore (BEACH) environments

❖ Where the currents are strong enough to redistribute land-derived sediment linear shorelines are formed with
bars and beaches running parallel to the coast.
❖ If a very large quantities of material are constantly supplied by a river delta will form.
❖ The scouring action of waves sometimes piles sand up in a narrow ridge away from the shore called an offshore
bar, which parallels the shoreline.
❖ Beach environments is subdivided into three sub environments:
1) Backshore
2) Foreshore
3) Shoreface
1. BACKSHORE
❖ Backshore: is characterized by subareal, predominantly wind-generated depositional processes.
❖ Backshore extends from the berm back to the farthest point reached by waves which may be the base of a sea
cliff or nip or edge of beach ridge or a line of sand dunes.
❖ Bars and berms built by heavy storms may be destroyed in the next storm which is more powerful than the
precedent.
❖ Characteristics of BACKSHORE:
1) The most irregular stratification
2) Some beds show gentle even cross-bedding
3) Cut and fill-cross bedding is also common
4) Dips of cross bedding are variable, but mainly landward
❖ Cut and fill-cross bedding: A sedimentary structure consisting of a small erosional channel that is subsequently
filled with inclined set of beds/laminae.

❖ When material is added to beach, backshore widens, beaches advances seaward and landward.
❖ Storm waves can’t reach to backshore.
❖ Ridges may be formed parallel to the shore and small ponds or swamps may be left between them.
❖ If the wind is active, sand dunes are formed behind these ridges.
❖ If supply of sand is large, dunes migrate landward and bury older structures.

2. FORESHORE
❖ Foreshore: is confined to the intertidal zone that extends from the lowest tide level to a normally well-marked
break in slope, called BERM, at about normal high water and the rougher, but relatively flat backshore.
❖ The swash-backwash mechanism is mainly responsible for distinct subparallel to low-angle seaward dipping,
planar lamination.
❖ Foreshore can be divided to:
1) Upper Foreshore
2) Lower Foreshore
❖ Characteristics of Upper Foreshore
1) The most regular bedding
2) Even laminae and cross-laminae
3) Low-angle cross-bedding
4) General dip is seaward
❖ Characteristics of Lower Foreshore:
1) Well-developed cross bedding
2) cut-and fill-cross bedding
3) Dipping both landward and seaward
3. SHOREFACE
❖ SHOREFACE: the area from low tide level to a depth of wave base (a depth of 0-20m).
❖ Wave base: waves begin to affect sea floor.

❖ Dominant depositional processes in Shoreface are wave energy.

❖ Wave energy dissipated on the sea floor decreases with increased water depth.
❖ Shoreface can be divided into three areas:
1) Lower shoreface deposit
2) Middle shoreface deposit
3) Upper shoreface deposit

1. Lower shoreface deposits

❖ Lower shoreface deposit is a low-energy transitional zone
❖ They consist of generally of very fine to fine grained sands with intercalated layers of silt and sandy mud.
❖ They are formed of parallel laminated beds

2. Middle shoreface deposits

❖ Middle shoreface deposit is a high-wave energy
❖ They are characterized by longshore bars.
❖ Fine to medium grained, clean sands are dominant.
❖ Low-angle, trough shaped cross-bedding.
❖ Extensively bioturbated.
 3. Upper shoreface deposits
❖ Upper shoreface deposit is a high-wave energy
❖ Fine sand to gravel.
❖ Multidirectional trough cross-bedding.

General Characteristics of beach environment

❖ Size: The material on such a beach is mostly or entirely sand.
❖ Finer sediments are winnowed out by waves into deep water.
❖ Size-sorting: At any state of waves the size-sorting is very good.
❖ Sometimes there are different sizes in laminae and the over-all sorting is moderately good.
❖ Composition: The most resistant minerals are concentrated on beaches such as quartz.
❖ Sometimes when the waves are weak or active during short time and when the quartz is uncommon or absent in
the source area, some non-resistant minerals may be common or dominant on the beaches.
❖ Beaches may consist of calcite, aragonite grains, commonly shells and tests of foraminifera, of fragments of
basalt, or of augite or olivine grains.
❖ Heavy minerals may be concentrated separately like ilmenite, magnetite or zircon and may form commercial
deposits.
❖ Shells may be present in abundance, but all these fossils are relatively rare in the final deposits of normal quartz-
sand beaches.

Typical columnar section of beach environment.

❖ Sequence produced by seaward progradation of beach.

 Week 16 ‘‘Mixed Environments: Tidal flats"
Environments Dominated by Tides and tidal currents (1. Tidal flats)
1. Tidal flat Environment
❖ Tidal flats develop along the gently dipping sea coasts with marked tidal rhythms where enough sediment is
available and strong wave action is not present.
❖ The areas where the factors needed to form tidal flat at:
1) Estuaries (drainage channel adjacent to the sea in which tides ebbs and flows)
2) Lagoons
3) Bays
4) Behind barriers
5) Other sand bars

❖ Tidal flats facing open sea may also develop, especially if wave activity is reduced due to development of long
subtidal zones.
❖ Tidal flat environment is subdivided into 3 sub environments:
1) Supratidal
2) Intertidal
3) Subtidal
 1. Subtidal zone
❖ Subtidal zone: is the zone which remains water filled even at low tide.
❖ Characteristics of Subtidal zone:
1) Medium to fine sand
2) Ripple bed / cross stratification
3) Laminated sand
4) Weak bioturbation

2. Intertidal Zone
❖ Intertidal Zone: is the zone between low tide and high tide limits.
❖ Characteristics of Intertidal zone:
1) Mostly without vegetation
2) In humid warm regions, vegetation is present.
3) Mostly fine-grained (mud, silt and clay and fine sand)
4) Gravels are rare.
5) Mud pebbles and shells are abundant in channel deposits
6) Near the high-water line sediments are muddy.
7) Near the low-water line sediments are sandy.
8) The muddy zone will grade gradually into sandy intertidal.
❖ The reason for this characteristic distribution is the distribution of energy and partly of the transport
mechanism.
❖ Near the low tide wave activity is strongest compared to the higher parts of the intertidal zone, so the sand is
enriched.
❖ The major mud deposition takes place in the muddy intertidal flat.

Type of bedding in intertidal zone

❖ There are three areas that controls the type of bedding we have:
a) Sand flat
b) Mixed flat
c) Mud flat
❖ Special terminology for thinly interbedded mudstone and sandstone:
The genesis of flaser bedding

The genesis of lenticular bedding

a. Sand flat
❖ Type of bedding On Sand flat:
1) Small ripple bedding: cross-bedded units made up of foreset laminae produced from migration of small
current-ripples.
2) Flaser bedding: Ripple bedding with numerous mud flasers.
3) Laminated sand:
4) Strong bioturbation: Animal activity results in the mixing of sediment completely and in the destruction
of primary layering, giving it the appearance of a homogenous mass.
b. Mixed flat
❖ Type of bedding On Mixed flat:
1) Lenticular bedding: The ripples and sand lenses are discontinuous and isolated, not only in a vertical but
also in a horizontal direction.
2) Flaser bedding
3) Shell layers
4) Bioturbation

c. Mud flat
❖ Type of bedding On Mudflat:
1) Lenticular bedding
2) Strong bioturbation

3. Supratidal Zone
❖ Supratidal Zone: is the shore zone immediately above high tide level, commonly this zone is kept more or less
moist by waves and spray.
❖ Characteristics of Intertidal zone:
1) Mostly vegetated.
2) In arid regions without vegetation.
3) Very fine sand, sand and mud, interbedded shell layers, plant roots.
4) Irregular wavy bedding: In wavy bedding, mud and sand layers alternate and form continuous layers.
❖ Stromatolite: laminated but structureless calcareous mats by constructed by marine algae.
❖ Stromatolites are layered sedimentary formations (microbialite) that are created mainly by photosynthetic
microorganisms such as cyanobacteria
Typical columnar sections of carbonate-type and clastic-type of tidal-flat deposits
 Week 17 ‘‘Mixed Environments: Shore-lagoons"
Environments Dominated by Tides and tidal currents (2. Shore-lagoons)
❖ Shore Lagoon Environments are where barrier beaches (or barrier islands) form, lagoons form behind them.
❖ Studies of recent clastic shorelines where tidal currents are active suggest that four major sedimentary
environments can be recognized.
❖ Explanations for the development of barrier islands / shoals / bars have been proposed by numerous scientists
for over more than 151 years.
❖ The explanations can be grouped into major theories:
1) offshore bar theory
2) spit accretion theory
❖ No single theory can explain the development of all barriers distributed extensively along the world's coastlines.

Offshore bar theory

❖ Waves moving into shallow water churned up sand, which was deposited in the form of a submarine bar when
the waves broke and lost much of their energy.
❖ As the bars accreted vertically, they gradually built above sea level, forming barrier islands.

Spit accretion theory

❖ Sediment moving in the breaker zone through agitation by waves in longshore drift would construct spits
extending from headlands parallel to the coast.
❖ The subsequent breaching of spits by storm waves would form barrier islands.

Shore Lagoon Sub-Environments

❖ Shore Lagoon Environment is consisting of four major sedimentary environments consist of two high-energy
zones which alternate seawards with two low-energy zones.
❖ Shore Lagoon sub-environments are (from land to sea):
1) Fluvial coastal plain.
2) Lagoonal and tidal flat complex.
3) Barrier island
4) Open marine shelf
❖ Each of these environments is characterized by its own lithology, sedimentary structures and biota (organisms).
1. Fluvial coastal plain
❖ Fluvial coastal plain is a High-energy environment
❖ Since coastal plain will have a gentle gradient, the alluvium will be of the meandering type.
❖ Fine-grained flood plain sediments will dominate over upward-fining channel sand sequences.
❖ Biota will be continental, with bones, wood, other plant debris and fresh-water invertebrates.
❖ Alluvial coastal plain will pass transitionally seawards into swamps, tidal flats and lagoons.
❖ Peat forms in the swamps.

2. Lagoonal and tidal flat complex

❖ Lagoonal and tidal flat complex are Low-energy.
❖ Tidal flat deposits will be characterized by interlaminated muds, silts and very fine sands, often rippled or
burrowed.
❖ Lagoon deposits are generally fine-grained too.
❖ Depending on the Lagoon size and depth, sand and mud sediments may deposit.
❖ In regions where of low sediment influx, carbonate mud can be deposited.
❖ Evaporates may form in hyper-haline lagoons.
❖ The fauna of lagoons is similarly variable depending on the salinity.
❖ Fauna may range from fresh-water, through brackish (with shell banks) to normal marine or, if restricted and of
high salinity, a fauna may be absent.
❖ Sedimentary structures of lagoons are similar to those of tidal flat with delicately laminated muds and
interlaminated and rippled sand, silt and mud.
❖ Bioturbation is common, but relatively less than that of the tidal flat deposits.

[Link] island
❖ Barrier island is High-energy.
❖ The lagoon is separated from the open sea by a barrier island complex.
❖ This is composed dominantly of well-sorted sand with a fragmented, derived marine fauna.
❖ The typical internal structure is regular bedding that dips gently seawards.
❖ The barrier may be no more than an offshore bar exposed only at low tide, or it can form an island with eolian
dunes on the crest.
❖ The barriers may be cut by tidal channels in which crossbedded sands are deposited.

4. Offshore zone
❖ Offshore zone is Low-energy.
❖ Barriers typically pass seawards with decreasing grain size into an offshore zone where mud is deposited below
wave base.
❖ This will be laminated and contains a marine fauna.
❖ Between this and the barrier is a transitional zone of interlaminated sand, silt and clay with ripples and burrows.
A typical columnar sections produced by a seaward prograding shore-lagoon-barrier island complex
❖ Clastic type:

❖ Carbonate type:
 TRANSGRESSING and REGRESSING
❖ The variations in the function both of sediment availability and of the rate of rise and fall of the land and sea.
❖ All four facies will only be preserved where is an abundant supply of land-derived sediment

The Situation at (A):

❖ When this happens and the shoreline is stationary, all four environmental deposits (zones) will form side by side.
❖ Such static shorelines are rare in the geologic record because they need a delicate balance between
sedimentation and rising sea level.
❖ If sediment influx is very high, all four sequences can not be built up one above the other. Delta is developed.
The Situation at (B):
❖ High sediment influx accompanied by a relative rise in sea level (progressing shoreline towards land) results in a
fining upward sequence, all four sequences build out one above the other as a fining upward sequence (towards
land).

The Situation at (C):

❖ High sediment influx accompanied by a relative fall in sea level (retreating shoreline towards the sea), all four
sequences build out one above the other as a coarsening upward sequence (towards the sea).
❖ Such sequences are similar to deltas; especially coarsening upwards from marine shales at the base into
continental sands at the top.

The Situation at (D):

❖ Linear clastic shorelines with low sediment influx may or may not have the four environmental zones.
❖ Where the advances on a land surface starved of sediment, an unconformity will pass up, sometimes with a
basal conglomerate, into a marine beach sand.
❖ This will fine-upwards into a marine low-energy sequence of shale or where there is no-land derived sediment,
carbonates.
The Situation at (E):
❖ Transitions are known between this kind of totally marine and complete fluvial – lagoonal – barrier – shelf
sequences.
❖ These typically show an unconformity overlain by fluvial sands which grade up through beach sand into marine
shales and /or Limestones.

The Situation at (F):

❖ A retreat of the sea from a low-lying land surface with no detritus may leave no mark in the geologic record
other than an unconformity.
❖ The actual shoreline may consist of a beach, or barrier beach and lagoon complex.
❖ As the sea retreats it will leave the old beach ridges stranded inland.
❖ These will be eroded and the sediment carried back to the sea to be re-deposited on the beach face.
❖ Net sedimentation above unconformity is thus generally zero.
 Week 18 ‘‘Mixed Environments: Deltas"
MARINE DELTA ENVIRONMENTS
❖ A delta is defined as the subareal and submerged contiguous sediment mass deposited in a body of water
(ocean or lake) primarily by the action of a river.
❖ The ideal form of a delta is considered to be a cone.
❖ Deltaic systems are:
1) triangular
2) lobe-shaped alluvial fans at mouths of rivers.
 ❖ The factors controlling configuration of a delta are:
1) Coastal morphology (configuration of a coast line, angle of slope of the continental shelf).
2) Direction and intensity of the waves coming from the open sea.
3) The degree of coastal transport of sediment in relation to the sediment transport by distributaries.
4) Tidal range.
5) Tectonic activity

Sub-Environments of a delta
❖ In a classical concept, a delta is made up of three types of deposits:
1) Topset
2) Foreset
3) Bottomset
1. Topset deposits
❖ Topset deposits can be differentiated into two parts:
1) Subaerial
2) Subaqueous
❖ Subaerial topset deposits are marsh and river channel deposits.
❖ Subaqueous topset deposits are delta front deposits, accumulating almost entirely under the influence fluvial
processes.
❖ Topset deposits are made up of:
1) Marsh deposits
2) Delta front silts and sands
3) River channel deposits
4) Natural levee deposits
5) Crevasse-splay deposits
6) Muddy sediments with shell layers
7) Tidal channel deposits
❖ These deposits are characterized by their heterogeneity and complex relationship of sedimentary units.

2. Foreset deposits
❖ In foreset deposits, the region seaward of the delta front environment is the prodelta environment.
❖ This subenvironment is composed of coarse sand, silt and clay/muddy sediments and is transitional into shelf
mud environment.
❖ Foreset deposits are made up of:
1) Coarse sand, silt and clay deposits formed of the major deltaic distributaries.
2) Beds of sand and gravel dipping at 10-25º

3. Bottomset deposits
❖ In bottomset deposits, shelf-mud environment is essentially clay deposits in the offshore region where fine-
grained material is deposited at a slow rate.
❖ Bottomset deposits are made up of Offshore clays under the influence of active deltas.
Typical columnar section of delta environment
 Week 19 ‘‘Mixed Environments: Organic reefs"
Organic Reef Environments
❖ Reef: a carbonate build up (a lens of carbonate rock) of skeletal organisms which at the time of formation had a
rigid framework forming a topographic high on the seafloor.
❖ Reef: a rock structure either mound-like or layered built by sedentary (growth in situ) organisms such as corals.

❖ The shape of a reef and the distribution of associated facies are controlled by:
1) Sea-level changes
2) Tectonic setting
3) Biota (organisms)
4) Oceanography
❖ The majority of reefs growing at the present time occur in shallow tropical seas.
❖ These reefs form best in less than 15 m of water where the salinity is between 27 to 40 per thousand and the
temperature seldom drops below about 20˚C.
❖ The resistant reef framework is composed of corals, calcareous algae, bryozoa, etc.
❖ Other organisms associated with reefs include calcareous sponges, foraminifera, echinoderms, pelecypods,
gastropods, and some carbonate-secreting worms.
Reef Sub-environments
❖ Reef environments can be subdivided into 3 geomorphological units:
1) Back-reef & lagoon
2) Reef-flat
3) Reef-front

1. Back-reef & lagoon

❖ Back-reef & lagoon: A reef generally shelters a shallow water lagoon from the open sea.
❖ The floor of the lagoon is covered by carbonate mud in its deeper parts and sands in shallower turbulent
regions.
❖ Lagoonal sediments are composed of pellets, skeletal sands, carbonate mud.
❖ Grain size increases across the lagoon toward the reefs and locally becomes conglomeratic due to organic debris
broken off the reef and carried into the lagoon by storms.
❖ Scattered through the lagoon may be irregular patch reefs.

[Link]-flat
❖ Reef-flat: the reef itself is composed of a resistant framework of calcareous organic skeletons.
❖ The top of the reef is flat since the creatures cannot survive prolonged sub-aerial exposure.
❖ In addition the upper surface is constantly planed off by wave action and dissected by seaward trending surge
channels.
❖ The reef framework is often highly porous. The porosity may be as high as 50 percent.

[Link]-front
❖ The seaward edge of the reef, the reef-front, is a sub-marine cliff with a talus slope at its base.
❖ The slope is made up of organic debris broken off from the reef front.
❖ Grain size decreases down slope into deeper water.
❖ Immediately at the foot of the reef front boulders of reef rock may be present, grading into sand and then mud
in deeper water.
❖ The talus slope supports a fauna similar to that of the reef but the quieter conditions allow more delicate
branching corals and calcareous algae to form.
❖ The reef talus has poorly developed seaward dipping bedding.
❖ Slumps and turbidities have been described from ancient reef flanks.
Types of reefs
❖ There are three types of reefs:
1) Fringing reefs
2) Barrier reefs
3) Atolls

1. Fringing reefs
❖ Fringing reefs: are linear in plane and stretch parallel to coast with no intervening lagoons
❖ Fringing reefs are the simplest and most common kind of reef.
❖ Hard substrate is necessary for the polyp to establish, but after that the corals make their own hard bottom.
❖ Fringing reefs can form where low rainfall (it means that little freshwater) and mud is brought into the sea to
inhibit the growth of reef colonial organisms.

2. Barrier reefs
❖ Barrier reefs: are linear like fringing reefs but a lagoon separates them from the land.
❖ The lagoon may be narrow or very wide.
❖ Some reefs are as far as 100 km from shore, and 2,000 km in length.

3. Atolls
❖ Atolls are rings of reef, with steep outer slopes, that surround a central lagoon.
❖ Atolls are found far from land, and mainly in the west Pacific.
❖ If the upward growth of the coral keeps pace with the downward subsidence of the original volcanic island, an
atoll is formed.
 Week 20 ‘‘Facies & Facies change"
FACIES
❖ The distinction between terrestrial and marine deposits is involving Paleoenvironmental Interpretation
❖ This introduces the facies concept as: the general aspect of the rock reflects the environmental condition under
which the rocks were formed.
❖ The various physical, chemical and biologic characteristics of depositional environments produce different types
of sediments and after lithification, sedimentary rocks.
❖ At a single point in time, distinctive environments are existed side by side so different rock types may form
contemporaneous and adjacent units.
❖ For example, a beach environment adjacent to a shallow-marine environment.

❖ These lateral variations are called sedimentary facies.

Sedimentary rock with Interpretation of

Ancient environmental
Forming distinct lithologic and Leads to environment of
conditions
biologıc characteristics deposition

MAKING INTERPRETATIONS
❖ Leads about ancient depositional environment:
1) grain size
2) grain shape
3) grain surface texture
4) grain fabric (the arrangement of the grains)
5) sedimentary structures
6) composition (siliciclastic; carbonate, evaporite, coal, chert)
7) fossils (body fossils, trace fossils)
8) stratification
9) sediment-body geometry/architecture
 1. GRAIN SIZE
❖ Particle size in clastic sedimentary rocks reflects the ENERGY of the depositional environment.
❖ For example: at Nearshore - waves crashing on beaches → fairly high energy → coarse textured deposits
(pebbles/sand)
❖ While for offshore → progressively lower energy environments → progressively finer textured deposits -
medium sand - fine sand - silt/mud - clay - carbonates (beyond land-derived sedimentation in shallow tropical
oceans).

2. PRIMARY SEDIMENTARY STRUCTURES

❖ Primary sedimentary structures These are structures within the deposit that were formed during deposition.
❖ mud cracks – shows → swamps, tidal marshes (places that dry out – non-marine.
❖ Stratification or layering – shows🡪 deposition in water (rivers, glacial meltwater, lakes, oceans).
❖ cross bedding → deltas, sand dunes, river deposits, etc

SEDIMENTARY ROCKS RELATED TO DEPOSITIONAL ENVIRONMENTS

❖ Examples of index sedimentary rocks:
1) SANDSTONES
a) Quartz sandstone
b) Arkose
c) Graywacke
d) Lithic sandstone
2) SHALES
3) CARBONATES
1. SANDSTONES
❖ Sandstones vary in quartz content, grain rounding & matrix percentage.
a. Quartz sandstone
❖ Quartz sandstone: predominantly quartz grains ("clean sandstone").
❖ Long transportation (quartz survives long transportation because it is relatively hard).
❖ Distant from mountainous regions, tectonically stable.
❖ Often form at coastlines, in deserts, on higher energy coastal plains and river floodplains (e.g. Padre Island).
❖ Quartz grains make up 90%+ of rock and the grains are well rounded.
❖ Cross beds and ripples are common.

b. Arkose
❖ Arkose is a terrestrial rock derived from granitic highlands, contain > 25% feldspar grains
❖ It implies fairly short transportation, because feldspar is relatively soft and erodes over long distances.
❖ Commonly pink-red color.

c. Graywacke
❖ Graywacke is a mixture of sand, clay and rock fragments ("dirty sandstone").
❖ It Indicates tectonic activity, rapid erosion/sediment accumulation, short transportation.
❖ Often deposited as turbidites (submarine landslide deposits).
❖ Matrix is usually 30%.
❖ Beds are often graded (sorted by size - coarse at the base, finer at the top).
d. Lithic sandstone
❖ Lithic sandstone is typical of deltaic deposits e.g. Mississippi delta.
❖ Matrix < 15%. Transitional between quartz sandstones and graywackes

2. SHALES
❖ Shales Form in similar environments to sandstones, only deposited under lower energy conditions.
❖ Under lower energy conditions → finer particles (clay, silt).
❖ Suitable environments: Shallow marine, marshes, lakes, lower energy coastal plains and floodplains.
❖ Finely layered, often fissile. Common fossils

3. CARBONATES
❖ Carbonates Most common example is limestone (calcium carbonate).
❖ Carbonates are formed by abundant marine organisms and the precipitation of calcium carbonate from sea
water.
❖ Suitable environments: Warm, clear, shallow tropical oceans - particularly common in platform areas.
 FACIES CHANGE
❖ A given strata may not have a very great lateral extent (from just a few meters to hundreds of kilometers).
❖ If you were able to follow or trace stratum laterally It would either:
1) change gradually into another stratum
2) it would disappear by pinching out or wedging out
❖ Pinch out: lateral thinning of unit to point of extinction.

❖ A sedimentary facies: is lateral variation in sedimentary rock units that are partly or wholly equivalent in age.
❖ The lateral variation is produced by deposition in different, but laterally adjacent environments.
❖ A facies has distinctive physical, chemical and biological characteristics which serve as clues that help the
geologist to interpret the environment in which the rock was deposited.

Walther’s Law of Facies

❖ Walther’s Law of Facies, or simply Walther’s Law, named after the geologist Johannes Walther (1860-1937),
states that the vertical succession of facies reflects lateral changes in environment.
❖ Walther’s Law of Facies: 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.
❖ Conversely, it states that when a depositional environment ‘migrates’ laterally, sediments of one depositional
environment come to lie on top of another.
❖ The lateral variation is produced by deposition in different, but laterally adjacent environments.
SEA-LEVEL CHANGES
❖ Sea-level changes are happening due to:
1) Vertical tectonic movements (uplift or subsidence) of lithosphere
2) Worldwide changes in sea level caused by changes in the volume of water in the oceans or by rise or fall
of the sea floor.
❖ Relative sea-level changes occur simply because of tectonic uplift or subsidence of land masses.
❖ Eustatic sea-level changes are worldwide (GLOBAL) changes that affect sea-level on all continents.

EFFECTS OF SEA-LEVEL CHANGES ON SEDIMENTATION PATTERNS

❖ In a marine transgression (rising sea-level), facies migrate onto land, resulting in a fining-up stratigraphic
sequence.

❖ In a marine regression (falling sea-level), facies migrate out over offshore facies, resulting in a coarsening-up
stratigraphic sequence.
❖ Recall that the concept of facies implies that a rock unit having certain characteristics (lithologic and biologic)
was deposited in a specific environment.
❖ Because a number of depositional environments may coexist at the time in any large area, contemporaneously
deposited rocks of varying facies grade into one another.
❖ This transition between facies is termed facies change.
❖ The lateral persistence and regularity of stratification is reflection of the persistence and regularity of the
depositional environment.
❖ Lithofacies: the lithologic aspects (lithologic properties) of a stratigraphic unit.
❖ You might refer to a red sandstone facies, or mudcracked limestone facies, or a fossiliferous black shale facies.
❖ Biofacies: the biologic aspects (biologic properties) of a stratigraphic unit.
❖ Transgression – Regression (Transgression then Regression):
A typical columnar section produced by a seaward prograding shore-lagoon-barrier island complex. (clastic
type)

A typical columnar section by a seaward prograding shore-lagoon-barrier island complex. (carbonate type)
Recognition of facies change
❖ To recognize the facies change the careful mapping of the area and comparison of local details bit by bit is
necessary.

Contacts between laterally adjacent strata

❖ They must terminate, either abruptly as a result of erosion or more gradually change to a different lithology.
❖ Contact can be observed as
1) Pinch out
2) Intertonguing
3) Progressive lateral gradation

1. Pinch out
❖ Pinch out: lateral thinning of unit to point of extinction

2. Intertonguing
❖ Intertonguing: lateral splitting of lithologic unit into "tongues" that in turn pinch out independently.

3. Progressive lateral gradation

❖ Progressive lateral gradation: gradual lateral transition
❖ Signs of facies change:
1) Intertonguing
2) Key beds that cross facies boundaries
3) Lateral gradation within a known stratigraphic interval
4) Faunal zones independent of facie

1. Intertonguing
❖ Intertonguing means that two lithofacies pass to each other with a distinct contact rather than with a gradual
lithologic change.
❖ Where two distinct facies intertongue, it is evident that they are at least partially contemporaneous.
❖ When you demonstrate the presence of extensive tongues you may be sure that at least these parts of the two
lithofacies are equivalent in age.

2. Key beds that cross facies boundaries

❖ Sometimes you may find some key beds which traverse the facies boundaries.
❖ These are extremely important to find the contemporaneous units (lithofacies).
❖ Commonly these key beds are less extensive and generally do not completely extend through a facies complex.
❖ But if they extend far enough to tie one section to next, other key beds may be found to tie in a further section.
3. Lateral gradation within a known stratigraphic interval
❖ When the lateral change of facies is gradual rather than abrupt, if overlying and underlying units do not change,
or at least do not change at the same place, the equivalence of two facies may be evident.
4. Faunal zones independent of facies
❖ Many organisms have wide tolerance to changes in environmental conditions (ecologic factors = temperature,
salinity, light, depth, water turbulence, biological associations and bottom conditions) and they live
simultaneously, but not in equal abundance.
❖ According to mode of life, organisms can be classified into 3 groups:
1) Benthonic organisms: bottom dwelling forms
2) Planktonic organisms: floating forms
3) Nektonic organisms: swimming forms

❖ Planktonic or nektonic forms are independent of local bottom conditions so such creatures provide some of the
best guide fossils for correlation regardless of lithology.
❖ Shells may be transported after death and may be carried from one lithofacies to another and sometimes they
may be useful for correlation of different lithofacies (transported fossils)
 Rocking Our Geology Exam: Cheers to Success!
To all my fellow explorers of Earth’s mysteries—whether seasoned geologists or budding rock
enthusiasts—I extend my heartfelt wishes as we stand on the precipice of the physical geology
exam.

As we unravel the intricacies of our planet’s dynamic processes, let us stride confidently toward
the exam room. Our dedication and hard work, like tectonic forces shaping continents, will
undoubtedly yield fruitful results.

May Your Minds Be Sharper Than Obsidian Blades: Recall the knowledge we’ve
collectively amassed—the stratigraphic layers of wisdom, the mineralogical gems, and the
َ ‫ان إالَّ َما‬
seismic insights. Let the Ayah “ayet” echo in your thoughts: “{‫س َعى‬ ِ ‫س‬ َ ‫“—”} َوأَن لَّي‬And
َ ‫ْس ِلإلن‬
that the human being attains only what he strives for.” In English, in Turkish“Ve insan için,
çalışmasından başka bir şey yoktur”, in the language of rocks, this truth reverberates.

Our Geological Journey, Forged in Stone: This path has enriched our understanding of
Earth’s story. We’ve hiked through epochs, deciphered fossils, and mapped ancient shorelines.
And in this shared quest, bonds as enduring as bedrock have formed among us.

Take a Breath, Geologist-Style: When exam stress threatens to upheave your

mental strata, remember how geologists handle pressure: They take a deep breath.
Just as metamorphic rocks transform under heat and pressure, so do our abilities.
Keep calm, visualize the geological time scale, and rock that test!

Beyond the Exam Horizon: Success awaits you, not just in this exam but in the uncharted
territories beyond. And fear not—geologists thrive in complexity; they navigate the folds and
faults of life with resilience.

So, my fellow geoscientists, may your pencils be as sharp as obsidian shards, your minds as
expansive as continental drift, and your spirits as unyielding as bedrock. Here’s to success—
onward, upward, and deeper into the geological unknown!

Mohanad Abotaleb
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