(Re) deposition of loess in southern Limbourg,the Netherlands 3. Field evidence for conditions of deposition of the middle and upper silt loam complexes,and landscape evolution at Nagelbeek |
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| Authors: | W J Vreeken |
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| Abstract: | This paper is about conditions and processes during the accumulation of the Upper Pleniglacial Middle and Upper Silt Loam complexes at Nagelbeek, Limbourg, a Weichselian stratigraphical type locality. The complexes correlate with Hesbayan and Brabantian loesses in Belgium, formed between 28,000 and 12,400 yrs BP. They are characterized by sediment features (cracks, mass deformations, and cut-and-fill features) that are ascribed to a cryogenic regimen. The main Middle Silt Loam subunit contains contraction cracks deformed and further modified by masswasting. Intra-Upper-Pleniglacial pedogenic intervals are inferred from three greyish bands, from a truncated weathered zone surmounting the Middle Silt Loam, and from an aeolian-cumulic palaeosol at the base of the Upper Silt Loam. Latter two zones and an intervening erosional unconformity were cryogenically reworked, less than 22,000 yrs BP, to form a complex stratigraphical marker-zone: the ‘Horizon à Langues de Nagelbeek’. Morphological variants of the marker-zone are described. The geomorphic evolution of the Nagelbeek upland, from Saalian to Holocene times, is summarized in unconformity maps and a time diagram. |
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| Keywords: | Stratigraphy Palaeogeomorphology Palaeopedology Loess Stoneline Cryogenesis Landscape evolution ‘ Horizon à Langues de Nagelbeek’ |
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