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1.
《Sedimentology》2018,65(3):952-992
Hybrid event beds comprising both clean and mud‐rich sandstone are important components of many deep‐water systems and reflect the passage of turbulent sediment gravity flows with zones of clay‐damped or suppressed turbulence. ‘Behind‐outcrop’ cores from the Pennsylvanian deep‐water Ross Sandstone Formation reveal hybrid event beds with a wide range of expression in terms of relative abundance, character and inferred origin. Muddy hybrid event beds first appear in the underlying Clare Shale Formation where they are interpreted as the distal run‐out of the wakes to flows which deposited most of their sand up‐dip before transforming to fluid mud. These are overlain by unusually thick (up to 4·4 m), coarse sandy hybrid event beds (89% of the lowermost Ross Formation by thickness) that record deposition from outsized flows in which transformations were driven by both substrate entrainment in the body of the flow and clay fractionation in the wake. A switch to dominantly fine‐grained sand was accompanied initially by the arrest of turbulence‐damped, mud‐rich flows with evidence for transitional flow conditions and thick fluid mud caps. The mid and upper Ross Formation contain metre‐scale bed sets of hybrid event beds (21 to 14%, respectively) in (i) upward‐sandying bed set associations immediately beneath amalgamated sheet or channel elements; (ii) stacked thick‐bedded and thin‐bedded hybrid event bed‐dominated bed sets; (iii) associations of hybrid event bed‐dominated bed sets alternating with conventional turbidites; and (iv) rare outsized hybrid event beds. Hybrid event bed dominance in the lower Ross Formation may reflect significant initial disequilibrium, a bias towards large‐volume flows in distal sectors of the basin, extensive mud‐draped slopes and greater drop heights promoting erosion. Higher in the formation, hybrid event beds record local perturbations related to channel switching, lobe relocations and extension of channels across the fan surface. The Ross Sandstone Formation confirms that hybrid event beds can form in a variety of ways, even in the same system, and that different flow transformation mechanisms may operate even during the passage of a single flow.  相似文献   

2.
The Lower Cretaceous Britannia Formation (North Sea) includes an assemblage of sandstone beds interpreted here to be the deposits of turbidity currents, debris flows and a spectrum of intermediate flow types termed slurry flows. The term ‘slurry flow’ is used here to refer to watery flows transitional between turbidity currents, in which particles are supported primarily by flow turbulence, and debris flows, in which particles are supported by flow strength. Thick, clean, dish‐structured sandstones and associated thin‐bedded sandstones showing Bouma Tb–e divisions were deposited by high‐ and low‐density turbidity currents respectively. Debris flow deposits are marked by deformed, intraformational mudstone and sandstone masses suspended within a sand‐rich mudstone matrix. Most Britannia slurry‐flow deposits contain 10–35% detrital mud matrix and are grain supported. Individual beds vary in thickness from a few centimetres to over 30 m. Seven sedimentary structure division types are recognized in slurry‐flow beds: (M1) current structured and massive divisions; (M2) banded units; (M3) wispy laminated sandstone; (M4) dish‐structured divisions; (M5) fine‐grained, microbanded to flat‐laminated units; (M6) foundered and mixed layers that were originally laminated to microbanded; and (M7) vertically water‐escape structured divisions. Water‐escape structures are abundant in slurry‐flow deposits, including a variety of vertical to subvertical pipe‐ and sheet‐like fluid‐escape conduits, dish structures and load structures. Structuring of Britannia slurry‐flow beds suggests that most flows began deposition as turbidity currents: fully turbulent flows characterized by turbulent grain suspension and, commonly, bed‐load transport and deposition (M1). Mud was apparently transported largely as hydrodynamically silt‐ to sand‐sized grains. As the flows waned, both mud and mineral grains settled, increasing near‐bed grain concentration and flow density. Low‐density mud grains settling into the denser near‐bed layers were trapped because of their reduced settling velocities, whereas denser quartz and feldspar continued settling to the bed. The result of this kinetic sieving was an increasing mud content and particle concentration in the near‐bed layers. Disaggregation of mud grains in the near‐bed zone as a result of intense shear and abrasion against rigid mineral grains caused a rapid increase in effective clay surface area and, hence, near‐bed cohesion, shear resistance and viscosity. Eventually, turbulence was suppressed in a layer immediately adjacent to the bed, which was transformed into a cohesion‐dominated viscous sublayer. The banding and lamination in M2 are thought to reflect the formation, evolution and deposition of such cohesion‐dominated sublayers. More rapid fallout from suspension in less muddy flows resulted in the development of thin, short‐lived viscous sublayers to form wispy laminated divisions (M3) and, in the least muddy flows with the highest suspended‐load fallout rates, direct suspension sedimentation formed dish‐structured M4 divisions. Markov chain analysis indicates that these divisions are stacked to form a range of bed types: (I) dish‐structured beds; (II) dish‐structured and wispy laminated beds; (III) banded, wispy laminated and/or dish‐structured beds; (IV) predominantly banded beds; and (V) thickly banded and mixed slurried beds. These different bed types form mainly in response to the varying mud contents of the depositing flows and the influence of mud on suspended‐load fallout rates. The Britannia sandstones provide a remarkable and perhaps unique window on the mechanics of sediment‐gravity flows transitional between turbidity currents and debris flows and the textures and structuring of their deposits.  相似文献   

3.
沉积物重力流流体转化沉积-混合事件层   总被引：3，自引：2，他引：1  
随着浊流和碎屑流理论体系日臻成熟,重力流的流体转化过程逐渐受到重视,而与其相关联的混合事件层概念也应运而生。混合事件层是单次碎屑流或浊流流体转化中的沉积记录,是多种流变学特征的垂向沉积组合。典型混合事件层沉积序列具有五段式的特征（即纯净砂岩段H1、条带状砂岩段H2、黏性碎积岩段H3、波状层理段H4、块状泥岩段H5）,其内部通常存在岩性突变界面。混合事件层发育于粗粒三角洲内部、海底扇和水道与舌状体过渡区、舌状体侧缘、远端及限制性的微型盆地边缘地区,其垂向叠置厚度可达数十米。混合事件层的发现对重力流流体转化、重力流沉积物空间流变学性质研究具有重要意义,同时也推动了油气储层构型和非均质性研究,为进一步寻找深水有利储集砂体提供了新思路。混合层地球物理识别方法的建立及其相关概念在湖泊重力流研究中的灵活应用将是下一步的研究方向。  相似文献   

4.
The late Pleistocene and Holocene stratigraphy of Navy Fan is mapped in detail from more than 100 cores. Thirteen 14C dates of plant detritus and of organic-rich mud beds show that a marked change in sediment supply from sandy to muddy turbidites occurred between 9000 and 12,000 years ago. They also confirm the correlation of several individual depositional units. The sediment dispersal pattern is primarily controlled by basin configuration and fan morphology, particularly the geometry of distributary channels, which show abrupt 60° bends related to the Pleistocene history of lobe progradation. The Holocene turbidity currents are depositing on, and modifying only slightly, a relict Pleistocene morphology. The uppermost turbidite is a thin sand to mud bed on the upper-fan valley levées and on parts of the mid-fan. Most of its sediment volume is in a mud bed on the lower fan and basin plain downslope from a sharp bend in the mid-fan distributary system. Little sediment occurs farther downstream within this distributary system. It appears that most of the turbidity current overtopped the levée at the channel bend, a process referred to as flow stripping. The muddy upper part of the flow continued straight down to the basin plain. The residual more sandy base of the flow in the distributary channel was not thick enough to maintain itself as gradient decreased and the channel opened out on to the mid-fan lobe. Flow stripping may occur in any turbidity current that is thick relative to channel depth and that flows in a channel with sharp bends. Where thick sandy currents are stripped, levée and mid-fan erosion may occur, but the residual current in the channel will lose much of its power and deposit rapidly. In thick muddy currents, progressive overflow of mud will cause less declaration of the residual channelised current. Thus both size and sand-to-mud ratio of turbidity currents feeding a fan are important factors controlling morphologic features and depositional areas on fans. The size-frequency variation for different types of turbidity currents is estimated from the literature and related to the evolution of fan morphology.  相似文献   

5.
Subaqueous sediment density flows: Depositional processes and deposit types   总被引：7，自引：0，他引：7  
Submarine sediment density flows are one of the most important processes for moving sediment across our planet, yet they are extremely difficult to monitor directly. The speed of long run‐out submarine density flows has been measured directly in just five locations worldwide and their sediment concentration has never been measured directly. The only record of most density flows is their sediment deposit. This article summarizes the processes by which density flows deposit sediment and proposes a new single classification for the resulting types of deposit. Colloidal properties of fine cohesive mud ensure that mud deposition is complex, and large volumes of mud can sometimes pond or drain‐back for long distances into basinal lows. Deposition of ungraded mud (TE‐3) most probably finally results from en masse consolidation in relatively thin and dense flows, although initial size sorting of mud indicates earlier stages of dilute and expanded flow. Graded mud (TE‐2) and finely laminated mud (TE‐1) most probably result from floc settling at lower mud concentrations. Grain‐size breaks beneath mud intervals are commonplace, and record bypass of intermediate grain sizes due to colloidal mud behaviour. Planar‐laminated (TD) and ripple cross‐laminated (TC) non‐cohesive silt or fine sand is deposited by dilute flow, and the external deposit shape is consistent with previous models of spatial decelerating (dissipative) dilute flow. A grain‐size break beneath the ripple cross‐laminated (TC) interval is common, and records a period of sediment reworking (sometimes into dunes) or bypass. Finely planar‐laminated sand can be deposited by low‐amplitude bed waves in dilute flow (TB‐1), but it is most likely to be deposited mainly by high‐concentration near‐bed layers beneath high‐density flows (TB‐2). More widely spaced planar lamination (TB‐3) occurs beneath massive clean sand (TA), and is also formed by high‐density turbidity currents. High‐density turbidite deposits (TA, TB‐2 and TB‐3) have a tabular shape consistent with hindered settling, and are typically overlain by a more extensive drape of low‐density turbidite (TD and TC,). This core and drape shape suggests that events sometimes comprise two distinct flow components. Massive clean sand is less commonly deposited en masse by liquefied debris flow (DCS), in which case the clean sand is ungraded or has a patchy grain‐size texture. Clean‐sand debrites can extend for several tens of kilometres before pinching out abruptly. Up‐current transitions suggest that clean‐sand debris flows sometimes form via transformation from high‐density turbidity currents. Cohesive debris flows can deposit three types of ungraded muddy sand that may contain clasts. Thick cohesive debrites tend to occur in more proximal settings and extend from an initial slope failure. Thinner and highly mobile low‐strength cohesive debris flows produce extensive deposits restricted to distal areas. These low‐strength debris flows may contain clasts and travel long distances (DM‐2), or result from more local flow transformation due to turbulence damping by cohesive mud (DM‐1). Mapping of individual flow deposits (beds) emphasizes how a single event can contain several flow types, with transformations between flow types. Flow transformation may be from dilute to dense flow, as well as from dense to dilute flow. Flow state, deposit type and flow transformation are strongly dependent on the volume fraction of cohesive fine mud within a flow. Recent field observations show significant deviations from previous widely cited models, and many hypotheses linking flow type to deposit type are poorly tested. There is much still to learn about these remarkable flows.  相似文献   

6.
ABSTRACT Mud‐rich sandstone beds in the Lower Cretaceous Britannia Formation, UK North Sea, were deposited by sediment flows transitional between debris flows and turbidity currents, termed slurry flows. Much of the mud in these flows was transported as sand‐ and silt‐sized grains that were approximately hydraulically equivalent to suspended quartz and feldspar. In the eastern Britannia Field, individual slurry beds are continuous over long distances, and abundant core makes it possible to document facies changes across the field. Most beds display regular areal grain‐size changes. In this study, fining trends, especially in the size of the largest grains, are used to estimate palaeoflow and palaeoslope directions. In the middle part of the Britannia Formation, stratigraphic zones 40 and 45, slurry flows moved from south‐west and south towards the north‐east and north. Most zone 45 beds lens out before reaching the northern edge of the field, apparently by wedging out against the northern basin slope. Zone 40 and 45 beds show downflow facies transitions from low‐mud‐content, dish‐structured and wispy‐laminated sandstone to high‐mud‐content banded units. In zone 50, at the top of the formation, flows moved from north to south or north‐west to south‐east, and their deposits show transitions from proximal mud‐rich banded and mixed slurried beds to more distal lower‐mud‐content banded and wispy‐laminated units. The contrasting facies trends in zones 40 and 45 and zone 50 may reflect differing grain‐size relationships between quartz and feldspar grains and mud particles in the depositing flows. In zones 40 and 45, quartz grains average 0·30–0·32 mm in diameter, ≈ 0·10 mm coarser than in zone 50. The medium‐grained quartz in zones 40 and 45 flows may have been slightly coarser than the associated mud grains, resulting in the preferential deposition of quartz in proximal areas and downslope enrichment of the flows in mud. In zone 50 flows, mud was probably slightly coarser than the associated fine‐grained quartz, resulting in early mud sedimentation and enrichment of the distal flows in fine‐grained quartz and feldspar. Mud particles in all flows may have had an effective grain size of ≈ 0·25 mm. Both mud content and suspended‐load fallout rate played key roles in the sedimentation of Britannia slurry flows and structuring of the resulting deposits. During deposition of zones 40 and 45, the area of the eastern Britannia Field in block 16/26 may have been a locally enclosed subbasin within which the depositing slurry flows were locally ponded. Slurry beds in the eastern Britannia Field are ‘lumpy’ sheet‐like bodies that show facies changes but little additional complexity. There is no thin‐bedded facies that might represent waning flows analogous to low‐density turbidity currents. The dominance of laminar, cohesion‐dominated shear layers during sedimentation prevented most bed erosion, and the deposystem lacked channel, levee and overbank facies that commonly make up turbidity current‐dominated systems. Britannia slurry flows, although turbulent and capable of size‐fractionating even fine‐grained sediments, left sand bodies with geometries and facies more like those deposited by poorly differentiated laminar debris flows.  相似文献   

7.
Much of our understanding of submarine sediment‐laden density flows that transport very large volumes (ca 1 to 100 km3) of sediment into the deep ocean comes from careful analysis of their deposits. Direct monitoring of these destructive and relatively inaccessible and infrequent flows is problematic. In order to understand how submarine sediment‐laden density flows evolve in space and time, lateral changes within individual flow deposits need to be documented. The geometry of beds and lithofacies intervals can be used to test existing depositional models and to assess the validity of experimental and numerical modelling of submarine flow events. This study of the Miocene Marnoso Arenacea Formation (Italy) provides the most extensive correlation of individual turbidity current and submarine debris flow deposits yet achieved in any ancient sequence. One hundred and nine sections were logged through a ca 30 m thick interval of time‐equivalent strata, between the Contessa Mega Bed and an overlying ‘columbine’ marker bed. Correlations extend for 120 km along the axis of the foreland basin, in a direction parallel to flow, and for 30 km across the foredeep outcrop. As a result of post‐depositional thrust faulting and shortening, this represents an across‐flow distance of over 60 km at the time of deposition. The correlation of beds containing thick (> 40 cm) sandstone intervals are documented. Almost all thick beds extend across the entire outcrop area, most becoming thinly bedded (< 40 cm) in distal sections. Palaeocurrent directions for flow deposits are sub‐parallel and indicate confinement by the lateral margins of the elongate foredeep. Flows were able to traverse the basin in opposing directions, suggesting a basin plain with a very low gradient. Small fractional changes in stratal thickness define several depocentres on either side of the Verghereto (high) area. The extensive bed continuity and limited evidence for flow defection suggest that intrabasinal bathymetric relief was subtle, substantially less than the thickness of flows. Thick beds contain two distinct types of sandstone. Ungraded mud‐rich sandstone intervals record evidence of en masse (debrite) deposition. Graded mud‐poor sandstone intervals are inferred to result from progressive grain‐by‐grain (turbidite) deposition. Clast‐rich muddy sandstone intervals pinch‐out abruptly in downflow and crossflow directions, in a fashion consistent with en masse (debrite) deposition. The tapered shape of mud‐poor sandstone intervals is consistent with an origin through progressive grain‐by‐grain (turbidite) deposition. Most correlated beds comprise both turbidite and debrite sandstone intervals. Intrabed transitions from exclusive turbidite sandstone, to turbidite sandstone overlain by debrite sandstone, are common in the downflow and crossflow directions. This spatial arrangement suggests either: (i) bypass of an initial debris flow past proximal sections, (ii) localized input of debris flows away from available sections, or (iii) generation of debris flows by transformation of turbidity currents on the basin plain because of seafloor erosion and/or abrupt flow deceleration. A single submarine flow event can comprise multiple flow phases and deposit a bed with complex lateral changes between mud‐rich and mud‐poor sandstone.  相似文献   

8.
Hybrid event beds comprising clay‐poor and clay‐rich sandstone are abundant in Maastrichtian‐aged sandstones of the Springar Formation in the north‐west Vøring Basin, Norwegian Sea. This study focuses on an interval, informally referred to as the Lower Sandstone, which has been penetrated in five wells that are distributed along a 140 km downstream transect. Systematic variations in bed style within this stratigraphic interval are used to infer variation in flow behaviour in relatively proximal and distal settings, although individual beds were not correlated. The Lower Sandstone shows an overall reduction in total thickness, bed amalgamation, sand to mud ratio and grain size in distal wells. Turbidites dominated by clay‐poor sandstone are at their most common in relatively proximal wells, whereas hybrid event beds are at their most common in distal wells. Hybrid event beds typically comprise a basal clay‐poor sandstone (non‐stratified or stratified) overlain by banded sandstone, with clay‐rich non‐stratified sandstone at the bed top. The dominant type of clay‐poor sandstone at the base of these beds varies spatially; non‐stratified sandstone is thickest and most common proximally, whereas stratified sandstone becomes dominant in distal wells. Stratified and banded sandstone record progressive deposition of the hybrid event bed. Thus, the facies succession within hybrid event beds records the longitudinal heterogeneity of flow behaviour within the depositional boundary layer; this layer changed from non‐cohesive at the front, through a region of transitional behaviour (fluctuating non‐cohesive and cohesive flow), to cohesive behaviour at the rear. Spatial variation in the dominant type of clay‐poor sandstone at the bed base suggests that the front of the flow remained non‐cohesive, and evolved from high‐concentration and turbulence‐suppressed to increasingly turbulent flow; this is thought to occur in response to deposition and declining sediment fallout. This research may be applicable to other hybrid event bed prone systems, and emphasizes the dynamic nature of hybrid flows.  相似文献   

9.
Subaqueous liquefied and fluidized sediment flows and their deposits   总被引：3，自引：0，他引：3  
A clear distinction must be made between liquefied and fluidized systems. In liquefied beds and flows, the solids settle downward through the fluid, displacing it upward, whereas, in fluidized beds, the fluid moves upward through the solids, which are temporarily suspended without net downward movement. Many recent references to fluidized sediment gravity flows refer, in fact, to flows of liquefied debris. Most uniformly liquefied beds of well-sorted sand- or gravel-sized sediment will resediment as simple two-layer systems. Liquefied flows can originate either by liquefaction followed by failure, as in many retrogressive flow slides, or by failure followed by liquefaction, as in the case of some slumps. Empirical and theoretical estimates of flow velocity, thickness, and travel distance suggest that natural laminar liquefied flows of fine-grained sand will generally resediment after moving a kilometre or less. Laminar flows of coarse-grained sand will resediment after moving only a few metres. Grain dispersive pressure is thought to be of little significance in the development or maintenance of liquefied flows. Many surficial submarine sand beds are apparently susceptible to liquefaction, including submarine canyon and continental rise deposits. Within submarine canyons and narrow fjords, steep slopes and channels promote the evolution of liquefied flows from slumps by liquefaction after failure and of high density turbidity currents from liquefied flows by the development of turbulence. Upon moving into the lower parts of submarine canyons or into proximal fan channels, liquefied flows will resediment and high density turbidity currents will tend to decline to flows transitional between liquefied flows and turbidity currents. The liquefied, coarser detritus within such transitional flows will be deposited while finer-grained debris will remain in suspension and continue downslope as dilute turbidity currents. Resedimentation of the liquefied portions of such flows may be responsible for the deposition of the A-subdivision of many turbidites and many thick, structureless ‘proximal turbidites’ or ‘fluxoturbidites’. Similar units can originate by liquefaction of the traction deposits of normal turbidity currents. Fluidized flows are probably uncommon, thin, and, where formed, originate through fluidization of the fine-grained tops of liquefied graded beds.  相似文献   

10.
Submarine gravity currents, especially long run‐out flows that reach the deep ocean, are exceptionally difficult to monitor in action, hence there is a need to reconstruct how these flows behave from their deposits. This study mapped five individual flow deposits (beds) across the Agadir Basin, offshore north‐west Africa. This is the only data set where bed shape, internal distribution of lithofacies, changes in grain size and sea floor gradient, bed volumes, flow thickness and depth of erosion into underlying hemipelagic mud are known for individual beds. Some flows were 30 to 120 m thick. However, flows with the highest fraction of sand were less than 5 to 14 m thick. Sand was most likely to be carried in the lower 5 to 7 m of these flows. Despite being relatively thin, one flow was capable of transporting very large volumes of sediment (ca 200 km3) for large distances across very flat sea floor. These observations show that these relatively thin flows could travel quickly enough on very low gradients (0·02° to 0·05°) to suspend sand several metres to tens of metres above the sea floor, and maintain those speeds for up to 250 km across the basin. Near uniform hemipelagic mud interval thickness between beds, and coccolith assemblages in the mud caps of beds, suggest that the flows did not erode significantly into the underlying sea floor mud. Simple calculations imply that some flows, especially in the proximal part of the basin, were powerful enough to have eroded hemipelagic mud if it was exposed to the flow. This suggests that the flows were depositional from the moment they arrived at a basin plain location, and that deposition shielded the underlying hemipelagic mud from erosion. Reproducing the field observations outlined in this exceptionally detailed field data set is a challenge for future experimental and numerical models.  相似文献   

11.
The settling behaviour of particulate suspensions and their deposits has been documented using a series of settling tube experiments. Suspensions comprised saline solution and noncohesive glass‐ballotini sand of particle size 35·5 μm < d < 250 μm and volume fractions, φs, up to 0·6 and cohesive kaolinite clay of particle size d < 35·5 μm and volume fractions, φm, up to 0·15. Five texturally distinct deposits were found, associated with different settling regimes: (I) clean, graded sand beds produced by incremental deposition under unhindered or hindered settling conditions; (II) partially graded, clean sand beds with an ungraded base and a graded top, produced by incremental deposition under hindered settling conditions; (III) graded muddy sands produced by compaction with significant particle sorting by elutriation; (IV) ungraded clean sand produced by compaction and (V) ungraded muddy sand produced by compaction. A transition from particle size segregation (regime I) to suppressed size segregation (regime II or III) to virtually no size segregation (IV or V) occurred as sediment concentration was increased. In noncohesive particulate suspensions, segregation was initially suppressed at φs ～ 0·2 and entirely inhibited at φs ≥ 0·6. In noncohesive and cohesive mixtures with low sand concentrations (φs < 0·2), particle segregation was initially suppressed at φm ～ 0·07 and entirely suppressed at φm ≥ 0·13. The experimental results have a number of implications for the depositional dynamics of submarine sediment gravity flows and other particulate flows that carry sand and mud; because the influence of moving flow is ignored in these experiments, the results will only be applicable to flows in which settling processes, in the depositional boundary, dominate over shear‐flow processes, as might be the case for rapidly decelerating currents with high suspended load fallout rates. The ‘abrupt’ change in settling regimes between regime I and V, over a relatively small change in mud concentration (<5% by volume), favours the development of either mud‐poor, graded sandy deposits or mud‐rich, ungraded sandy deposits. This may explain the bimodality in sediment texture (clean ‘turbidite’ or muddy ‘debrite’ sand or sandstone) found in some turbidite systems. Furthermore, it supports the notion that distal ‘linked’ debrites could form because of a relatively small increase in the mud concentration of turbidity currents, perhaps associated with erosion of a muddy sea floor. Ungraded, clean sand deposits were formed by noncohesive suspensions with concentrations 0·2 ≤ φs ≤ 0·4. Hydrodynamic sorting is interpreted as being suppressed in this case by relatively high bed aggradation rates which could also occur in association with sustained, stratified turbidity currents or noncohesive debris flows with relatively high near‐bed sediment concentrations.  相似文献   

12.
Deep‐water sandstone beds of the Oligocene Fusaru Sandstone and Lower Dysodilic Shale, exposed in the Buz?u Valley area of the East Carpathian flysch belt, Romania, can be described in terms of the standard turbidite divisions. In addition, mud‐rich sand layers are common, both as parts of otherwise ‘normal’ sequences of turbidite divisions and as individual event beds. Eleven units, interpreted as the deposits of individual flows, were densely sampled, and 87 thin sections were point counted for grain size and mud content. S3/Ta divisions, which form the bulk of most sedimentation units, have low internal textural variability but show subtle vertical trends in grain size. Most commonly, coarse‐tail normal grading is associated with fine‐tail inverse grading. The mean grain size can show inverse grading, normal grading or a lack of grading, but sorting tends to improve upward in most beds. Fine‐tail inverse grading is interpreted as resulting from a decreasing effectiveness of trapping of fines during rapid deposition from a turbidity current as the initially high suspended‐load fallout rate declines. If this effect is strong enough, the mean grain size can show subtle inverse grading as well. Thus, thick inversely graded intervals in deep‐water sands lacking traction structures do not necessarily imply waxing flow velocities. If the suspended‐load fallout rate drops to zero after the deposition of the coarse grain‐size populations, the remaining finer grained flow bypasses and may rework the top of the S3 division, forming well‐sorted, coarser grained, current‐structured Tt units. Alternatively, the suspended‐load fallout rate may remain high enough to prevent segregation of fines, leading to the deposition of significant amounts of mud along with the sand. Mud content of the sandstones is bimodal: either 3–13% or more than 20%. Two types of mud‐rich sandstones were observed. Coarser grained mud‐rich sandstones occur towards the upper parts of S3/Ta divisions. These units were deposited as a result of enhanced trapping of mud particles in the rapidly deposited sediment. Finer grained mud‐rich units are interbedded with ripple‐laminated very fine‐grained sandy Tc divisions. During deposition of these units, mud floccules were hydraulically equivalent to the very fine sand‐ and silt‐sized sediment. The mud‐rich sandstones were probably deposited by flows that became transitional between turbidity currents and debris flows during their late‐stage evolution.  相似文献   

13.
The East China Sea Shelf has an unusually wide and low gradient shelf, supplied from sediment‐charged rivers and large river delta systems, with bottom currents sweeping the sea floor and located in the path of strong typhoons. Sediment gravity flow deposits, including four hybrid event beds and a high density turbidite, are identified in a core from the mid‐shelf of the East China Sea. The hybrid event beds typically comprise three or two internal divisions from the base to the top: (i) H1, H3 and H5; or (ii) H3 and H5. Radiocarbon ages of the hybrid event beds were in the range of 3821 to 8526 yr bp . Based on correlation with surrounding cores, the hybrid events may have happened at any time between 1930 yr bp and 3890 yr bp . The δ13C values in hybrid event beds together with bathymetry data suggest local erosion on the shelf. The average δ13C value for the H1 division is similar to the H3 division in the hybrid event beds, implying that the organic matter in the H1 and H3 divisions may come from the same source area. Cross‐plots of upper continental crust normalized rare earth elements in the five units reveal that the sediment source of the four hybrid event beds and the turbidite was ultimately primarily from Korean rivers. Partial transformation from a moderate‐strength debris flow with the additional role of erosional bulking can explain occurrences of hybrid event beds on the East China Sea Shelf. The data indicate that hybrid sediment gravity flow deposits were sourced from intra‐shelf failures and subsequently transformed and deposited as hybrid event beds. The study shows that hybrid sediment gravity flows and turbidity currents may not necessarily indicate proximity to a major fluvial or deltaic system and that intra‐shelf sedimentation can be a sediment source. It is unlikely that the debris flows and turbidity currents were triggered by a hyperpycnal flow or tsunami, because both can carry continental and/or coastal signals which have not been recognized in the core. Typhoons are the probable triggering mechanism.  相似文献   

14.
The Marnoso‐arenacea Formation in the Italian Apennines is the only ancient rock sequence where individual submarine sediment density flow deposits have been mapped out in detail for over 100 km. Bed correlations provide new insight into how submarine flows deposit sand, because bed architecture and sandstone shape provide an independent test of depositional process models. This test is important because it can be difficult or impossible to infer depositional process unambiguously from characteristics seen at just one outcrop, especially for massive clean‐sandstone intervals whose origin has been controversial. Beds have three different types of geometries (facies tracts) in downflow oriented transects. Facies tracts 1 and 2 contain clean graded and ungraded massive sandstone deposited incrementally by turbidity currents, and these intervals taper relatively gradually downflow. Mud‐rich sand deposited by cohesive debris flow occurs in the distal part of Facies tract 2. Facies tract 3 contains clean sandstone with a distinctive swirly fabric formed by patches of coarser and better‐sorted grains that most likely records pervasive liquefaction. This type of clean sandstone can extend for up to 30 km before pinching out relatively abruptly. This abrupt pinch out suggests that this clean sand was deposited by debris flow. In some beds there are downflow transitions from turbidite sandstone into clean debrite sandstone, suggesting that debris flows formed by transformation from high‐density turbidity currents. However, outsize clasts in one particular debrite are too large and dense to have been carried by an initial turbidity current, suggesting that this debris flow ran out for at least 15 km. Field data indicate that liquefied debris flows can sometimes deposit clean sand over large (10 to 30 km) expanses of sea floor, and that these clean debrite sand layers can terminate abruptly.  相似文献   

15.
Abstract The outer parts of a number of small Late Jurassic sandy deep‐water fans in the northern North Sea are dominated by the stacked deposits of co‐genetic sandy and muddy gravity flows. Sharp‐based, structureless and dewatered sandstone beds are directly overlain by mudclast breccias that are often rich in terrestrial plant fragments and capped by thin laminated sandstones, pseudonodular siltstones and mudstones. The contacts between the clast‐rich breccias and the underlying sandstones are typically highly irregular with evidence for liquefaction and upward sand injection. The breccias contain fragments (up to metre scale) of exotic lithologies surrounded by a matrix that is extremely heterogeneous and strewn with multiphase and variably sheared sand injections and scattered coarse and very coarse sand grains (often coarser than in the immediately underlying sand bed). Markov chain analysis establishes that the breccias consistently overlie sandstones, and the character of the breccias and their external contacts rule out a post‐depositional origin via in situ liquefaction, intrastratal flowage or bed amalgamation and disruption. The breccias are interpreted as debrites that rode on a water‐rich sand bed just deposited by a co‐genetic concentrated gravity current. As such, they are referred to as ‘linked debrites’ to distinguish them from debrites emplaced in the absence of a precursor sand bed. The distinction is important, because these linked debris flows can achieve significant mobility through entrainment of both water and sediment from beneath, and they ride on a low‐friction carpet of liquefied sand. This explains the paradox presented by fan fringes in which there are common debrites, when conventional thinking might predict that deposits of low‐concentration gravity currents should be more important here. In fact, evidence for transport by low‐concentration turbidity currents is rare in these systems. Several possible mechanisms might explain the formation of linked flows, but the ultimate source of both sandy and clast‐rich flow components must be in shallower water on the basin margin (the debrites are not triggered from distal slopes). Flow partitioning may have occurred by upslope erosion and retardation of the mudclast‐charged portion of an erosional sandy density current, partial flow transformation of a precursor debris flow and/or hydraulic segregation and reconcentration of the flaky clasts and carbonaceous matter during transport. Linked debrites are not restricted to small sand‐rich fans, and similar mechanisms may be responsible for the long runout of debris flows in other systems. The recognition of a distinct class of linked debrites is of wider importance for facies prediction, reservoir heterogeneity and even carbon fluxes and sequestration on continental margins.  相似文献   

16.
The complexity of flow and wide variety of depositional processes operating in subaqueous density flows, combined with post‐depositional consolidation and soft‐sediment deformation, often make it difficult to interpret the characteristics of the original flow from the sedimentary record. This has led to considerable confusion of nomenclature in the literature. This paper attempts to clarify this situation by presenting a simple classification of sedimentary density flows, based on physical flow properties and grain‐support mechanisms, and briefly discusses the likely characteristics of the deposited sediments. Cohesive flows are commonly referred to as debris flows and mud flows and defined on the basis of sediment characteristics. The boundary between cohesive and non‐cohesive density flows (frictional flows) is poorly constrained, but dimensionless numbers may be of use to define flow thresholds. Frictional flows include a continuous series from sediment slides to turbidity currents. Subdivision of these flows is made on the basis of the dominant particle‐support mechanisms, which include matrix strength (in cohesive flows), buoyancy, pore pressure, grain‐to‐grain interaction (causing dispersive pressure), Reynolds stresses (turbulence) and bed support (particles moved on the stationary bed). The dominant particle‐support mechanism depends upon flow conditions, particle concentration, grain‐size distribution and particle type. In hyperconcentrated density flows, very high sediment concentrations (>25 volume%) make particle interactions of major importance. The difference between hyperconcentrated density flows and cohesive flows is that the former are friction dominated. With decreasing sediment concentration, vertical particle sorting can result from differential settling, and flows in which this can occur are termed concentrated density flows. The boundary between hyperconcentrated and concentrated density flows is defined by a change in particle behaviour, such that denser or larger grains are no longer fully supported by grain interaction, thus allowing coarse‐grain tail (or dense‐grain tail) normal grading. The concentration at which this change occurs depends on particle size, sorting, composition and relative density, so that a single threshold concentration cannot be defined. Concentrated density flows may be highly erosive and subsequently deposit complete or incomplete Lowe and Bouma sequences. Conversely, hydroplaning at the base of debris flows, and possibly also in some hyperconcentrated flows, may reduce the fluid drag, thus allowing high flow velocities while preventing large‐scale erosion. Flows with concentrations <9% by volume are true turbidity flows (sensu 4 ), in which fluid turbulence is the main particle‐support mechanism. Turbidity flows and concentrated density flows can be subdivided on the basis of flow duration into instantaneous surges, longer duration surge‐like flows and quasi‐steady currents. Flow duration is shown to control the nature of the resulting deposits. Surge‐like turbidity currents tend to produce classical Bouma sequences, whose nature at any one site depends on factors such as flow size, sediment type and proximity to source. In contrast, quasi‐steady turbidity currents, generated by hyperpycnal river effluent, can deposit coarsening‐up units capped by fining‐up units (because of waxing and waning conditions respectively) and may also include thick units of uniform character (resulting from prolonged periods of near‐steady conditions). Any flow type may progressively change character along the transport path, with transformation primarily resulting from reductions in sediment concentration through progressive entrainment of surrounding fluid and/or sediment deposition. The rate of fluid entrainment, and consequently flow transformation, is dependent on factors including slope gradient, lateral confinement, bed roughness, flow thickness and water depth. Flows with high and low sediment concentrations may co‐exist in one transport event because of downflow transformations, flow stratification or shear layer development of the mixing interface with the overlying water (mixing cloud formation). Deposits of an individual flow event at one site may therefore form from a succession of different flow types, and this introduces considerable complexity into classifying the flow event or component flow types from the deposits.  相似文献   

17.
鄂尔多斯盆地上三叠统延长组长7段深水重力流沉积类型   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  
以鄂尔多斯盆地上三叠统延长组长7段取芯段为主要研究对象,以详细的岩芯观察为基础,以Z43井为例,研究鄂尔多斯盆地延长组长7段深水重力流沉积类型及其特征。研究结果表明,研究区主要发育砂质碎屑流沉积、低密度浊流沉积及混合事件层三种沉积类型。砂质碎屑流沉积整体呈块状,岩性为中—细砂岩,内部可见多个接触面,为多套砂质碎屑流沉积垂向叠置形成。低密度浊流沉积中大部分为中—薄层的正粒序砂岩垂向叠置而成,部分泥质含量较高,表现出砂泥互层的特征。混合事件层主要由下部干净的块状细砂岩与上部富含变形泥岩撕裂屑的砂质泥岩或泥质砂岩成对组合形成,其成因为浊流流动过程中侵蚀泥质基底,黏土物质或泥质碎屑的混入导致浊流向泥质碎屑流转化,最终形成下部浊流沉积上部泥质碎屑流沉积的混合事件层。相近位置不同深度不同类型的深水重力流沉积垂向叠置,指示了复杂多变的重力流流体演化过程。对重力流沉积类型的准确认识,能进一步促进对深水重力流流体转化过程的理解,明确深水重力流沉积分布,为鄂尔多斯盆地深水重力流沉积及常规与非常规油气勘探与开发提供理论指导。  相似文献   

18.
时建超 《地质与勘探》2018,54(1):183-192
结合深水重力流沉积理论、野外剖面、岩心、测井等资料的分析,对鄂尔多斯盆地合水地区延长组长7油层组重力流沉积相和砂体结构的类型、特征进行了深入分析。研究表明长7沉积期发育大面积的深水砂岩,主要发育砂质碎屑流、浊流等重力流砂体,砂质碎屑流沉积以块状层理为主,单砂体厚度大,浊流沉积以粒序层理为主,砂泥互层频繁;结合重力流沉积背景下各成因砂体测井曲线形态、垂向发育厚度、垂向连续性及组合特征,将砂体垂向叠置结构划分为多期砂叠置厚层型、厚砂-薄泥互层型、厚砂-薄砂-泥互层型及薄砂-厚泥互层型四种类型,并对研究区单井砂体结构进行了聚类。实践表明,砂质碎屑流沉积区虽是油气藏有利聚集分布带,但分布面积较广,结合砂体结构特征,可进一步细化有利区划分,为致密油藏有利区的优选提供了新的研究思路。  相似文献   

19.
Turbidity currents in the ocean are driven by suspended sediment. Yet results from surveys of the modern sea floor and turbidite outcrops indicate that they are capable of transporting as bedload and depositing particles as coarse as cobble sizes. While bedload cannot drive turbidity currents, it can strongly influence the nature of the deposits they emplace. This paper reports on the first set of experiments which focus on bedload transport of granular material by density underflows. These underflows include saline density flows, hybrid saline/turbidity currents and a pure turbidity current. The use of dissolved salt is a surrogate for suspended mud which is so fine that it does not settle out readily. Thus, all the currents can be considered to be model turbidity currents. The data cover four bed conditions: plane bed, dunes, upstream‐migrating antidunes and downstream‐migrating antidunes. The bedload transport relation obtained from the data is very similar to those obtained for open‐channel flows and, in fact, is fitted well by an existing relation determined for open‐channel flows. In the case of dunes and downstream‐migrating antidunes, for which flow separation on the lee sides was observed, form drag falls in a range that is similar to that due to dunes in sand‐bed rivers. This form drag can be removed from the total bed shear stress using an existing relation developed for rivers. Once this form drag is subtracted, the bedload data for these cases collapse to follow the same relation as for plane beds and upstream‐migrating antidunes, for which no flow separation was observed. A relation for flow resistance developed for open‐channel flows agrees well with the data when adapted to density underflows. Comparison of the data with a regime diagram for field‐scale sand‐bed rivers at bankfull flow and field‐scale measurements of turbidity currents at Monterey Submarine Canyon, together with Shields number and densimetric Froude number similarity analyses, provide strong evidence that the experimental relations apply at field scale as well.  相似文献   

20.
Clean basal and capping argillaceous sandstone couplets in deep water settings have been previously interpreted as the result of spatially segregated turbidity currents and debris flows or spatio-temporal transitioning of a turbulent flow to a transitional/laminar state. However, this paper presents three-dimensional laboratory experiments demonstrating that a single sediment-gravity flow can develop sand–mud couplets by autogenic remobilization of sediments that are still in the process of being deposited. This remobilization appears common to flows composed of mixtures of sand and mud with viscosities and strengths measurably greater than water, but not so high as to fully suppress the settling of sand through the depositional current. Dewatering in the early sand deposit acts to lubricate the basal portion of the increasingly muddy upper division of the flow, causing it to accelerate downslope, triggering a secondary flow with a sediment composition distinct from the original mixture. Sediment deposition and remobilization processes in a single sediment-gravity flow and their resultant deposit were imaged acoustically and cored at representative locations within the deposit. The acoustic data and cores show sand–mud couplets that are qualitatively similar to interpreted turbidite–debrite-like couplets in natural systems.  相似文献   

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