FLUVIAL DEPOSITIONAL SYSTEM

Fluvial sedimentation is primarily controlled by the fluvial processes,

mostly related to rivers. Three major types of fluvial sedimentation are
identified:
Alluvial Fan Sedimentation
Alluvial Plain Sedimentation
Megafan Sedimentation

Alluvial Fan Sedimentation

An alluvial fan is a fan shaped body of coarse grained sediments, formed by
mountain stream at the base of a mountain front where a steeper slope
changes abruptly into a gentle slope.
Alluvial fan shows two types of deposits
1.

Debris flow deposits

2.

Water laid deposits (Stream channel, Sheet flood, Sieve)

The Alluvial fan shows three distinct zones:

Fanhead (Upper Fan)
Coarse grained sediments,
conglomerates) dominate.

mainly

debris

flow

(matrix

supported

Mid fan (Middle Fan)

Made up of mostly water laid sediments (channelized conglomerates) and thin
debris flow deposits.

Base (Lower Fan)

Made up of sandy sediments deposited by sheet floods, with occasional
conglomerate units.

Alluvial Plain Sedimentation

Alluvial plains are vast areas formed by river channel activity, flood processes.
River Channel Deposits
Rivers occur in straight, braided, meandering and anastomosing patterns.
In a river channel deposition takes place essentially as fluvial bars, which
are braid bars, point bars and lateral bars.
Base of a river channel deposit shows a channel lag deposit followed by
fluvial bar deposits.
Fluvial bar deposits are made up of mostly fining upward sequences,
showing from bottom towards top, large-scale cross-bedding, horizontal
bedding, small ripple bedding, silty horizontal bedding and mud.
Architectural element analysis is helpful in identification of nature of sand
bars. Microforms (ripples), mesoforms (megaripples) and macroforms (unit
bar) are identified.

The eight basic architectural elements in fluvial

deposits. (Miall 1988a, b; modified from Maill 1985

Overbank deposits
They are deposit formed along the river bank and in the flood plain and
identified into two

River margin deposits

Consist of natural levee and crevasse splay deposits.

Flood plain deposits

Made up of muddy sediments by sheet floods when the river overtops the
channel.

Interfluve (Doab) deposits

In alluvial plains with incised river channels, vast interfluve areas are present
where deposition is not controlled by river channel processes. On interfluve
areas fine-grained (muddy) sediments are deposited by mainly sheet flow, minor
gullys, and small ponds.

Megafan Sedimentation
Megafans are large-sized fans formed in humid climate by large rivers with huge
water and sediment supply. The fans show anastomosing and diverging river
channels which join together at the distal end of the megafan.
The megafan deposits show a distinct zonation into four zones from proximal to
distal part.
Zone I
Area of gravelly, shallow braided channels.
Zone II
Sandy braid plain with many shallow channels.
Zone III
Area of anastomosing channels.
Zone IV
Area of meandering channels with broad interfluves.

Terminal fans
In semi-arid climate with low gradient and large sediment supply finegrained fans are developed. In terminal fans, axial stream branches
into small distributaries which lose their identity in lower fan. The
rivers can be described as distributive river system. In the lower fan
area small water bodies and few ephemeral streams are present.
Proximal part shows mainly sandy deposit, middle part shows muddy
sediments with sandy lenses, the lower part is made up of muddy
sediments with rare thin sandy horizons.