Soft-sedimentdeformationstructuresintheEarthsoldest.PDFVIP

Sedimentary Geology 186 (2006) 19–26 /locate/sedgeo Soft-sediment deformation structures in the Earth’s oldest seismites Rajat Mazumder a,*, A.J. (Tom) van Loon b, Makoto Arima c a Department fu¨r Geo- und Umweltwissenschaften, Geologie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universita¨t Mu¨nchen Luisenstr. 37, D-80333 Mu¨nchen, Germany b Faculty of Earth Sciences, University of Silesia, Bedzinska 60, 41-200 Sosnowiec, Poland c Department of Environment and Natural Sciences, Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, 79-7, Tokiwadai, Hodogaya Yokohama 240-8501, Japan Received 10 October 2005; received in revised form 1 December 2005; accepted 7 December 2005 Abstract The Chaibasa Formation in Eastern India, which was deposited between 2100 and 1600 million years ago, shows deformations that must have formed when the sediments were not yet consolidated. Some of these deformation structures have never been described before. Here they are described, depicted and their origin is analysed. We show that they must be the result of shocks, which can only be explained satisfactorily as triggered by earthquakes. The layers containing these deformation structures are termed bseismitesQ . They are among the earliest records of earthquakes known in the Earth’s history. D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Soft-sediment deformation structures; Seismites; Proterozoic; India; Chaibasa Fm. 1. Introduction 1965; Mazumder, 2005). Although the rocks described