15.07.2013 Views

Copyright by Nysha Chaderton 2009 - The University of Texas at ...

Copyright by Nysha Chaderton 2009 - The University of Texas at ...

Copyright by Nysha Chaderton 2009 - The University of Texas at ...

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

<strong>The</strong>se poorly sorted sands are l<strong>at</strong>erally continuous for the length <strong>of</strong> the outcrop<br />

(approxim<strong>at</strong>ely 20 m). <strong>The</strong>se sands are coarse grained with some granules.<br />

<strong>The</strong> bases <strong>of</strong> these sands are erosive and are locally overlain <strong>by</strong> a lag <strong>of</strong> armored<br />

mud balls. Sandstone beds become thinner up-section and finer. <strong>The</strong> finer-grained sands<br />

have both planar lamin<strong>at</strong>ions and climbing ripples. However, ripples are not found up-<br />

section as the uppermost sands show only parallel lamin<strong>at</strong>ions. Dew<strong>at</strong>ering structures<br />

rel<strong>at</strong>ed to the loading <strong>of</strong> sand beds onto finer grained silt and mud beds was also noted.<br />

Although there are thin (2-4 cm) sand beds <strong>at</strong> the top <strong>of</strong> the section, the majority <strong>of</strong> the<br />

prominent sand beds occur <strong>at</strong> the base <strong>of</strong> the section. Some unidentified trace fossils<br />

appear in the units.<br />

<strong>The</strong> lower 10 meters <strong>of</strong> the section is domin<strong>at</strong>ed <strong>by</strong> interbedded centimeter scale<br />

Te, Tb beds, minor Tc, Td and rare Ta beds th<strong>at</strong> make up the sands, silts and muds <strong>of</strong> Facies<br />

6. In this lower 10 m, there are medium grained sands with erosive bases th<strong>at</strong> are absent<br />

in the upper portion <strong>of</strong> the section. Successions <strong>of</strong> thin bedded turbidite deposits th<strong>at</strong> are<br />

10’s <strong>of</strong> m thick (> 40 m) are interpreted to record an abandonment <strong>of</strong> the channel<br />

complex set in space or time (Campion, 2000; Schwarz and Arnott, 2007). In addition the<br />

presence <strong>of</strong> sand beds with scoured bases confirm th<strong>at</strong> this thick deposit <strong>of</strong> Facies 6 is not<br />

a distal basin plain deposit, but a thick master levee deposit as described <strong>by</strong> Mutti (1977).<br />

Sleeping Giant Ridge (SGR)<br />

<strong>The</strong> Sleeping Giant Ridge outcrop (Figure 2.17) is separ<strong>at</strong>ed from the Chalky<br />

Mount <strong>by</strong> a NE-SW oriented thrust fault (Poole and Barker, 1980; Speed, 1983).<br />

Although there is a clear rel<strong>at</strong>ionship between the two outcrops, the amount <strong>of</strong><br />

displacement from one outcrop to another is unknown. <strong>The</strong>refore, although the Sleeping<br />

Giant Ridge outcrops are interpreted as the same depositional “phase” <strong>of</strong> the system as<br />

the Chalky Mount Upper, the beds th<strong>at</strong> have been measured <strong>at</strong> each locality cannot be<br />

traced from one outcrop to the other.<br />

12

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!