Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Cycles Or Repetitions: A Quantitative Analysis Of Alluvial Bed Thicknesses, Kristopher D. Phillips

WWU Graduate School Collection

Sedimentary strata display a range of repetitive patterns from interbedded lithofacies through recurring sequence stratigraphic systems tracts. Highly structured, large-scale patterns are commonly ascribed to cyclic allogenic forcings such as eustasy and climate. In contrast, autogenic processes are typically thought to impart stochastic noise or limited small-scale structure on stratigraphy. Recent studies indicate some autogenic processes in fluvial and fluvio-deltaic systems such as the large-scale compensational deposition (i.e., the tendency for a channel to occupy and fill topographic lows in a basin), can occur on spatiotemporal scales that may overlap with some allogenic forcings. These autogenic processes could impart deterministic, …