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GEOL 342 Sedimentation and Stratigraphy Lecture 12: clastic marine and pelagic environments 16 March 2006 Assoc. Prof. A. Jay Kaufman Clastic marine and pelagic environments Compared to every other kind of depositional environment, we know the least about deep-water marine and pelagic environments, even though the oceans cover over 75% of the Earth’s surface. Even if it was possible to view these environments, most of these systems are not presently active. Only during relative sea level low stands are these systems really active, so we must look into the ancient record to elucidate these environments, which accumulate below the base level of erosion and hence have a high preservation potential. Clastic shelf deposits Sedimentation on continental shelves (where ocean depths are less than 200 m) are continuous with coastal plain sequences. In tropical environments these accumulate abundant carbonates, but in cold water or areas with high siliciclastic inputs, the shelves are covered by fine sands, silts, and muds. During sea level highstands continents are flooded creating large epeiric seas that may accumulate abundant sediments. The continental shelves exposed during the LGM were submerged at a rate of almost 1 cm/yr due to the melting of glaciers. Due to reworking of fluvial or deltaic sediments deposited on present-day shelves by marine processes, modern continental shelf deposits may not be good analogs for ancient sedimentation. Depositional processes on shelves are dictated by whether the sediments accumulate above or below wave base, or whether tidal currents are strong enough to redistribute particles. Where tidal ranges are large (2 m) and currents are fast (50 to 100 cm/s) sand asymmetrical sand ribbons or tidal ridges are formed on the continental shelf. At tidal currents of less than 50 cm/s, sheets or waves of sand develop. A tidal sand wave has a crest of 3 to 15 meters and wavelengths of 150 to 500 meters. They are composed