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Models of time-averaging as a maturation process: How soon do sedimentary sections escape reworking?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2017

Peter M. Sadler
Peter M. Sadler*
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521
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Extract

Holocene sediments are the traditional classroom for learning to recognize the geologic record of different environments. Box cores and shallow trenches display sedimentary stratification and assemblages of organic remains together with their relationship to active surface processes and living organisms. Sedimentologists see the origin of particular bed-forms; paleoecologists learn to match animals to trace fossils, for example; and stratigraphers are reminded that it is not just the sediment surface that is active. Shells, bones, and sediment grains below the surface are still subject to rearrangement. Until this activity has ceased we have not seen what will ultimately be preserved as the mature stratigraphic record of the environment that we have trenched.

Type
Research Article
Information
Short Courses in Paleontology , Volume 6: Taphonomic Approaches to Time Resolution in Fossil Assemblages , 1993 , pp. 188 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 Paleontological Society 

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