Beruflich Dokumente
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gi
Kamal Roslan Mohamed
INTRODUCTION
Shallow marine environments are areas of accumulation of substantial
amounts of terrigenous clastic material brought in by rivers from the
continental realm.
Offshore from most coastlines there is a region of shallow water, the
continental shelf, which may stretch tens to hundreds of kilometres out to
sea before the water deepens down to the abyssal depths of ocean
basins.
Terrigenous clastic material is distributed on shelves by tides, waves,
storms and ocean currents: these processes sort the material by grain size
and deposit areas of sand and mud, which form thick, extensive sandstone
and mudstone bodies in the stratigraphic record.
Characteristic facies can be recognised as the products of transport and
deposition by tides and storm/wave processes.
Deposition in shallow marine environments is sensitive to changes in sea
level.
Shoreface
The shallower parts of the shelf are within the depth zone for wave action
and any sediment will be extensively reworked by wave processes. Sands
deposited in these settings may preserve wave-ripple cross-lamination and
horizontal stratification.
Streaks of mud in flaser beds deposited during intervals of lower wave
energy become more common in the deposits of slightly deeper water
further offshore
Offshore
The outer shelf area below storm wave base, the offshore zone, is
predominantly a region of mud deposition.
The sediments are commonly grey because this part of the sea floor is
relatively poorly oxygenated allowing some preservation of organic matter
within the mud.
Characteristics of a shallow-marine
succession
The offshore facies mainly consists of
mudstone beds with some bioturbation.
This is overlain by offshore transition facies
made up of sandy tempestite beds
interbedded with bioturbated mudstone.
The tempestite beds have erosional bases,
are normally graded and show some
hummockyswaley cross-stratification.
The thickness of the sandstone beds
generally increases up through the
succession, and the deposits of the
shallower part of this zone show more SCS
than HCS.
A schematic graphic
sedimentary log of a
storm-dominated succession.
Characteristics of a shallow-marine
succession
The shoreface is characterised by sandy
beds with symmetrical (wave) ripple
lamination, horizontal stratification and
SCS, although sedimentary structures may
be obscured by intense bioturbation.
Sandstone beds in the shoreface may
show a broad lens shape if they were
deposited as localised ridges on the
shallow sea floor.
The top of the succession may be capped
by foreshore facies.
A schematic graphic
sedimentary log of a
storm-dominated
succession.
A schematic
sedimentary log
through a tidally
influenced shelf
succession.
A schematic graphic
sedimentary log of a
storm-dominated
succession.
SEKIAN