Intertidal clay-drape couplets (Gironde estuary, France)     

Hugues Fenies  Amaury De Resseguier  & Jean-Pierre Tastet 《Sedimentology》1999,46(1):1-15

Clay-drape couplets on subaqueous dunes have been regarded as a diagnostic feature of the subtidal environment since Visser's seminal paper (1980). The new observation of clay-drape couplets in the intertidal zone on a present day tidal bar of the Gironde estuary shows that they are not restricted to the subtidal zone.
In the intertidal zone, low-tide slack-water clay drapes are deposited in the bottomsets of the dominant current dunes when the muddy water retained in the troughs is absorbed into the sand during the emergence of the intertidal bar. They drape emergence run-off ripples generated by the drainage currents in the bottomsets. High-tide slack-water clay drapes are deposited over the entire dune surface and are preserved on the lee side of the dunes and in the bottomsets. They drape the subordinate current ripples. Low-tide and high-tide slack-water clay drapes enclose one thin rippled sand layer (the subordinate current bundle) and are isolated from other adjacent clay-drape couplets by the dominant current bundle.
The clay-drape couplets deposited in the intertidal zone can be distinguished from their subtidal counterparts on the basis of two morphological differences:
1. In the intertidal zone, the low-tide clay drape is only present in the bottomsets of the dunes, whereas in the subtidal zone equivalent clay drapes are also present on the lower part of the lee side of the dunes.
2. In the intertidal zone, low-tide clay drapes are deposited in the bottomsets of the dunes over emergence run-off ripples oriented in the direction of the drainage currents (i.e. in a direction normal to the tidal currents). Conversely, in the subtidal zone, the equivalent clay drapes are typically deposited over ripples oriented in the tidal-current direction (ebb or flood). There is a difference of polarity of 90° between the intertidal and subtidal small-scale bedforms draped by the low-tide slack-water drapes.  相似文献   

Facies and geometry of tidal channel-fill deposits (Arcachon Lagoon, SW France)     

Hugues Fenies  Jean-Claude Faugres 《Marine Geology》1998,150(1-4):131-148

The Arcachon Lagoon has an important network of tidal channels and well developed tidal flats covered by the marine grass Zostera marina. Based on 66 piston cores taken from the Graveyron tidal channel, and observations on the neighbouring channels, this paper documents the facies and geometry of the channel-fill deposits. In the inner lagoon (studied area) the tidal channels are 80 to 150 m wide and have a meandering morphology with sandy point bars 2 to 5 m thick. The channel-fill does not consist of the classic inclined heterolithic bedding typical of many channel-fills (Reineck, 1958), but of cross-stratified sandy deposits characterized by the absence of slack-water clay-drapes. These unusual facies characteristics are due to the low turbidity of the lagoonal waters which is caused by the lack of significant river inflow and the dense coverage of Zostera marina on the tidal flats. The overall geometry of the channel-fill deposits is characterized by a narrow sand-ribbon shape, a few kilometres long, 80 to 150 m wide and 1 to 5 m thick. This sand ribbon is made of elliptical sand bodies, deposited as point bars, that coalesce longitudinally along the channel axis. This narrow shape is due to the fact that the lateral migration of the channel is virtually nil (reduced to a few metres). In spite of their characteristic meandering morphology, these channels do not deposit extensive tabular sand sheets of amalgamated point bars like the tidal creeks on the North Sea tidal flats. Two factors are thought to control this lack of channel migration. (1) The tidal flats adjacent to the tidal channels are made of 3- to 5-m-thick cohesive muddy sediments covered by Zostera marina that prevents the erosion of the channel banks. This first mechanism is supported by the observation that the tidal creeks that drain the muddy tidal flats covered by Zostera marina do not migrate laterally, whereas those that drain the sandy tidal flats devoid of a dense coverage of marine grass do have active lateral migration. (2) The tidal channels are not fed by any river and therefore do not receive any fluvial sand influx during the winter floods. Their morphology is in equilibrium with the tidal discharge and represents a stable stage in the development of the channel. This second mechanism is supported by the fact that the only tidal channels that actively migrate laterally in the lagoon receive sandy fluvial influx from the River Leyre located in the southeastern corner of the lagoon.  相似文献   

Facies and architecture of an estuarine tidal bar (the Trompeloup bar, Gironde Estuary, SW France)   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Hugues Fenies  Jean-Pierre Tastet 《Marine Geology》1998,150(1-4):149-169

This study describes the sedimentary facies and internal architecture of a modern estuarine tidal bar present in the bay-head delta of a wave- and tide-dominated estuary, the Gironde Estuary, in southwest France. Based on 51 cores (2 to 5 m long), this work demonstrates that such bars are composite sedimentary bodies made up of individual sigmoidal sand units isolated from one another by thick muddy layers. The bar appeared in the study area around 1874. Since then, its evolution has been characterized by phases of rapid downstream bar migration alternating with periods of bar abandonment. During the periods of active bar progradation, which commonly last between 10 and 20 years, the bar progrades up to 7 km seaward and forms a narrow (200–800 m wide) sand ridge up to 6 m thick. During abandonment phases which also last around 10–20 years, the bar is starved of sand and a mud layer (1 to 3 m thick) is deposited. The vertical succession formed by the seaward progradation of the tidal bar records these alternating phases of growth and abandonment. A typical vertical succession in the bar system is 8 m thick and comprises several superimposed, upward-coarsening units of cross-stratified sand, deposited during phases of seaward progradation, separated by a thick layer of thinner-bedded mud and sand laminae deposited during phases of bar abandonment. When a tidal bar builds up to the supratidal zone, marshes accumulate and the bar becomes a permanent island in the estuary. The large-scale architecture of the bar is thus made of an alternation of potential sandy reservoir units and muddy internal seals. The reservoir units are characterized by a sigmoidal shape. The muddy layer, which is deposited between the two sigmoidal units, is a thick, continuous potential internal seal. This complex internal architecture is due to the fact that there is a considerable amount of mud present in the bay-head delta of the Gironde Estuary. It is thought to be representative of the architecture of tidal bars in the inner part of wave- and tide-dominated estuaries.  相似文献   

Preliminary study on the preservation of giant clam (Tridacnidae) shells from the Balobok Rockshelter archaeological site,south Philippines     

Marie Grace Pamela G. Faylona  Claire E. Lazareth  Anne‐Marie Smah  Sandrine Caquineau  Hugues Boucher  Wilfredo P. Ronquillo 《Geoarchaeology》2011,26(6):888-901

Tridacnidae shells, a valuable archive of past environments, are common in the Balobok Rockshelter archaeological site on Sanga‐Sanga Island in the south Philippines. This site was occupied during the mid‐Holocene (ca. 5000–8800 ¹⁴C yr B.P.), a period of Neolithic cultural expansion in the Philippines. This paper focuses on the preservation of two shell specimens, Hippopus hippopus and Tridacna maxima, unearthed from two mid‐Holocene layers within the rockshelter. The shells' mineralogy and microstructure (prismatic and crossed‐lamellar) were studied using micro‐Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy to determine if the samples were suitable as paleoenvironmental records. Both shells are still aragonitic but aragonite crystals of both microstructure types are partly dissolved. This dissolution, characteristic of meteoric water alteration, precludes their utility in paleoenvironmental geochemical studies. Nevertheless, these shells are abundant in archaeological sites in the region and may be better preserved in other depositional contexts; more studies on Philippine Tridacnidae shell diagenesis are needed. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.  相似文献