fluvial response to climate and climate pulses over geological time scales
TRANSCRIPT
Fluvial response to climateover geological timescales
Aart-Peter van den Berg van Saparoea
George Postma
Reconstruction of external forcing mechanisms of fluvial and deltaic deposits
Sea-level changeorclimate pulse?
Simplified fluvial systemClimate
Eustasy
Shelf and basin
Model setup
Experiments
DEM
Scan (photogrammetryor laser)
model
3 m
Synthetic stratigraphy
software
Neither!
Sea-level fluctuation in different stable climates
Sea-level changeorclimate pulse?
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time
Shelf and fluvial style in a stable climate
river shelf
basin
Low water discharge
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time
Shelf and fluvial style in a stable climate
river shelf
basin
Low water discharge
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time
Shelf and fluvial style in a stable climate
river shelf
basin
Low water discharge
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time
Shelf and fluvial style in a stable climate
river shelf
basin
Low water discharge
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time
Shelf and fluvial style in a stable climate
river shelf
basin
Low water discharge
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time
river shelf
basin
High water discharge
Shelf and fluvial style in a stable climate
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time
river shelf
basin
High water discharge
Shelf and fluvial style in a stable climate
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time
river shelf
basin
High water discharge
Shelf and fluvial style in a stable climate
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time
river shelf
basin
High water discharge
Shelf and fluvial style in a stable climate
river shelf
basin
High water discharge
Shelf and fluvial style in a stable climate
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time
Summary constant discharge
• Extent of erosion surface
• Fluvial stratigraphy
• Volume of lowstand sediments
Resulting only from a different constant water discharge
Conclusions• Interpretation of stratigraphy is not intuitive• Recognition of distinctive patterns in
stratigraphic architecture improves interpretation
• Analogue modeling helps to find these distinctive patterns in stratigraphic architecture
• Expansion of our database by less time-consuming methods is required
