9) Zonas de alta energa (costas)

These slides are the first in a series on coastal definitional environments we are going to spend
the next two weeks or so discussing a variety of environments from deltas estuaries tidal flats
barrier islands but we are going to start with open wave dominated coast because they have the
simplest spatial distribution of faces so this video is going to introduce some new sedimentary
structures that we have not encountered before and discuss their distribution across the
shallow marine shelf also introduce this one of these sequence stratigraphic services the
regressive service of marine erosion which is basically only found in these coastal environments
in the open ocean when the wter depth is deep wter moves by waves in purely a circular
motion when the wter becomes shallower the way you start to interact with the seafloor and
the wave orbitals become squished right by the sea floor the wter motion becomes just a back
and forth oscillation so waves begin to interact with the seafloor when the wter depth is less
tan half of the wave lengt and this is something called wave base the step is whats called wave
base. Typical Fairweather normal waves have wavelengths on the order of 10 to 30 meters so
this means that they interact with the sea floor when the water depth is around 5 to 15 meters
that depth is what we call Fairweather wave base. Storm waves another hand can have much
much larger wave lengths up to maybe 400 meters in rare cases like really big hurricanes so they
affect much deeper parts of the sea floor may be anywhere between 30 to 125 meters depth so
that depth where storms actually start affecting the bottom is called storm wave face of course
wave energy in any environment is a continuum there arent really distinct fair and fair weather
and storm wave basis but the concepts are still useful nevertheless. We can use these concepts
of fair weather wave base storm wave base to subdivide the shallow marine shelf or the littoral
zone into environmenths, these environments are called the beach which is everything above
the mean low water point or the me I mean low tide the shore face is the rea between the
mean low wter and the top of Fairweather wave base the offshore transition is everything
below fair weather wave base but above storm wave base and finally the offshore environment
is below even storm wave base so considering the offshore environment and this holds for any
depositional environment grain size is a function of energy levels and proximity to the source
because the offshore environment is below storm wave base the energy levels are very low and
because Its far from the coastline its very far from the rivers that supply sediment so as a result
the sediments are fine grained often mudstone or still Stone there may be occasional very thin
sand beds these are called tempest tights their distal or far away flows from storms, this photo
here shows some typical fine grained offshore faces particularly in the botton part of the section
the rea around the arrow is potentially offshore transition but the fine grain thin bedded two
faces at the bottom were very typical of the offshore. If we move above storm wave base we
start to see some higher energy features and energy levels are intermittently higher during the
storm waves late storm events and these long wavelength storm waves generate a distinctive
sedimentary structure at least in fine or mdium sand called hummocky cross stratification often
abbreviated as hcs. Hcs appears as these large broad domes or hommucks they can be up to a
couple meter across but theyre typically maybe one to two meters across and there are a few
tens of centimeters high inside them they have gently curved laminations which are convex up
in the hommucks theyre also concave up laminations called swales that are between the
hummucks because these offshore transitin environments are characterized by high-energy
storms that aire fairly intermittent punctuating more continuous low energy background
conditions the faces often have interbedded sandstone with hcs representing the high-energy
storms and mudstone or other sort of fine-grained sediments represent the background time
the base of the hcs sandstone beds is potentially erosive with sol mark features like gutter casts
these scoured grooves on the base that come from turbulent scouring by storms so in the
offshore transition the characteristic faces and sedimentary structures are interbedded
sandstones with finer grain sediments the sandstone beds often have HTS, HTS being a very
distinctive feature of the offshore transition those sandstone beds will have fine or I'L have
sharp bases potentially with scours like gutter casts. If we move above Fairweather wave base
into the shore face in the shore face environment there is fairly continuous wave energy so that
means this means that the mudstone inter beds disappear or become very rare wave energy
here even from Fairweather waves is sufficiently high to keep mud in suspension so it is not able
to be deposited. Well talk about a couple different types of shoreface environments the first
one is if the shelf or in the shore face our storm dominated if thats the case the hcs may
transition upwards up section into a related sedimentary structure called sway Lee cross
stractification or SCS, so in SCS the hummucks the convex up domes are rare or absent and so
its dominated instead by these large low angle scooped swales which give sweaty crotch on
education its name so SCS is a pre diagnostic feature of storm influenced shoreface zones. if the
large storms are not very common the shore face will instead be dominated by wave ripples just
from fair weather wave action, youve learned about the current ripples before and the fluval
lectures so how to wave ripples differ, well in their overall shape wave ripples have a
symmestrical or fairly symmetrical cross section in contrast to the asymmetrical stoss and Li
sides that you saw in current ripples. theres actually two different types of wave ripples formed
by different processes were not formed by different processes were not going to worry about
that detail but a lot of wave ripples have a sharp crest which can branch in these Y shaped or
tuning fork bifurcations like the arrow on the right hand picture. Wave generated flow isny
always perfectly bi-directional it may favor one direction or ober the other so wave ripples can
contain dipping laminations or cross laminations within them, they do dip i think at lower angles
than fluval cross stractification generally but even then the ripple es fairly symmetrical in cross-
section and as you see in the ripples in the layer nect to the quarter it may also have continuous
layers draping symmetrically over this crest. True bidirectional flow should produce these sort
of tenth shaped or upside down v-shaped Chevron laminate the layer just above the quarter has
some more irregular laminations dipping in a variety of directions more typical of wave ripples,
theres one final type of shoreface to consider its probable not very common but it does occur
and this is a short phase in which longshore current energy dominates. if the waves hit the
strollin at an angle the shore parallel component of energy creates a current flowing
continuously along or perpendicular to the shoreline if that current is strong enough and if
storms are weak or absent the short-faced sediments can be dominated by large dunes that are
migrating along shore and so they produce large likely planar cross beds that have a paleo
current direction perpendicular to the shoreline. So the slide just summarizes the typical
sedimentary structures and different types of shore faces remember the shore face will be
nearly entirely sandstone with very Little if any mud or silt because of the near constant wave
or longshore current energy. So finally the shallowest or the most procimal environment in the
coastal zone is the beact environment this is the rea above the average low tide position above
the mean low water it includes the foreshore which is the rea between low and high tide where
wave action is relatively or nearly continuous and it also includes the back shore which receives
sediment probably only doing large storm events, so for shore sediments dominate Beach
deposits in the rock record and their doubted by waves eash the wave rushing up the beach
then gradually flowing back down the beach slope the waves wash some of them marked by the
red arrows there it has fast velocity has a very shallow flow depth and also because typically
have very well sorted maure fine sand grains all those three feactures as youve learned form
the unidirectional bed form phase diagram tell you that you would expect to find upper plane
bed in this section so therefore thin parallel laminations likely with parting lineation Zhaan the
surface. Heres an example of typical Beach deposits bute ven if the parting lineation arent
visible the planer lamination the very mature sand and really importantly the fact that the
foreshore actuallly dips at a slow at a low angle is very indicate so the beach dips at a couple
degrees maybe up to five degrees relative to the bending of the environment and so as a result
this low angle C Word dipping stractification is a very strong indicator of Beach deposits, there
can also be shallow scour surfaces that erode Little grooves or troughs within this otherwise
planar lamination. Well as you know form our Pebble Beach field tip not all beaches or Sandy of
course and as you know from the fluval leacture upper plane bed only forms when the screen
size is fine sand or smaller so you of course wont see parting lineation xin a gravelly beach but
the presence of this low angle C Word dipping planer layers possibly with small scours again give
me a really goog tip-off that this is a beach environment or a foreshore environment, so heres
a recap of all the sedimentary structures and their distribution across wave dominated coastlines
so in class youre going to think about the vertical succesion of these planes during regression
and transgression. I want to end with a brief discussion of one sequence stratigraphic surface
the regressive surface of marine erosion this surface is unquely developed in wave dominated
shoreface settings during the falling stage systems tracked it doesnt develop anywhere else and
so therefore its very distinctive and diagnostic of the falling stage in a shallow marine setting in
wave dominated coasts the bathymetric profile or the shape of the shore face is set by waves
energy theres a concave up profile in which the shore face is slightly steeper than the offshore
transition or the offshore, so the peak of the base level cycle just before base level falls the sea
floor profile follows this dashed line here this wave equilibrium profile. After some base level
fall base level is now at position number 2 and the new seafloor profile is the thin concave up
line so ths new profile is above the previous or the initial equilibrium profile to the left this point
labeled the lever point so that means that shoreface sediments will accumulate there in this
blue wedge but this new profile the thin line is a below the initial dashed line offshore of the
lever point and that leads to erosion in this rea. This erosional surface is called the regressive
surface of marine erosion, the surface to the left of the shore fate of the lever point is called the
basal surface of forced regression but were not going to deal with it because the basal surface
of forced regression cant be recognized in outcrop because the facie succession is just a gradual
succession or gradual shift from progra ditional offshre for proga deschanel offshore transition
to progra ditional shoreface sediments with no obvius break or shift or change in the stacking
pattern. The regressive surface of marine erosion is typically very distinctive it normally
separates finer grained offshore facies perhaps offshore transition phases below form Sharp
based shoreface sandstones above the offshore transition is largely or entirely missing so there
is an abrupt grain size transition its potentially marked by signs of marine erosion like gutter
casts, so in this example the offshore faces are the faces below likely represent the heist and
systems tracked prior to base level fall and the shore face sandstones are likely part of the falling
stage system strike so in general you can asume that the regressive service of marine erosion is
overlain by falling stage or FS st sediments although thats not entirely true everywhere. The
regressive service marine erosion can also form in carbonate environments as shown by this
example the light gray sediments at the base of the section or the base of the crap our outer
ramp limestones probably the HST this irregular surface is the scoured regressive surface of
marine erosion with gutter casts and above it are darker gray inner ramp limestones with
abundant sway Lee cross gratificacin which if you look closely you can see these large scooped
out swales and this represents deposition during the following stage systems tracked again
9) Zonas de alta energa (costas)

Estas diapositivas son las primeras de una serie sobre entornos de definicin de zonas costeras
pero vamos a empezar con ondas abiertas dominada por costas porque tienen la distribucin
espacial ms simple de las caras, de modo que este video va a introducir algunas nuevas
estructuras sedimentarias que no hemos encontrado antes y discutir sobre su distribucin a
travs de la plataforma marina poco profunda. El servicio regresivo de la erosin marina que
bsicamente slo se encuentra en estos ambientes costeros en el ocano abierto cuando la
profundidad del agua es profunda y se mueve por ondas en un movimiento puramente circular,
cuando el agua se vuelve ms superficial la forma en que empieza a interactuar con el fondo
marino y los orbitales de onda se aplastan justo por el fondo marino, cuando el movimiento se
convierte en una oscilacin de ida y vuelta las ondas comienzan a interactuar con la del fondo
marino y cuando la profundidad del agua es menos de la mitad de la longitud de onda y esto es
algo llamado base de onda.

Las ondas normales tienen longitudes de onda del orden de 10 a 30 metros por lo que esto
significa que interactan con el fondo marino cuando la profundidad del agua es de alrededor
de 5 a 15 metros de profundidad que es lo que llamamos Fairweatherr. Grandes Olas de
tormenta, pueden tener longitudes de onda de hasta 400 metros en casos raros como huracanes
realmente grandes por lo que afectan a muchas partes ms profundas del fondo del mar, la base
de onda de tormenta es entre 30-125 m de profundidad.

Figura 1. En aguas abiertas, las ondas tienen puramente un movimiento oscilatorio.

La parte inferior se llama cara de la ola de tormenta, por supuesto, la energa de la ola en
cualquier entorno es continua, sin embargo, Podemos utilizar estos conceptos de base de ola de
onda de tiempo justo para subdividir el estante marino superficial o la zona litoral en ambientes,
estos entornos se llama: La playa que es todo sobre el punto medio bajo del agua o lo que
significa la marea baja, la cara de la costa es el rea entre el promedio de aguas bajas y la parte
superior de la base de onda de Fairweather, la transicin en alta mar es justo todo por debajo
de la base de la ola de tiempo, y finalmente el ambiente costero afuera est debajo.

Para cualquier ambiente de deposicin el tamao de grano es una funcin de los niveles de
energa y la proximidad a la fuente, porque el ambiente costero afuera est por debajo de la
base de onda de tormenta los niveles de energa son muy bajos y porque est lejos de la costa
est muy lejos de los ros que suministran sedimentos. Los sedimentos que son de grano fino a
menudo de barro o piedra todava pueden encontrarse en camas de arena muy delgada que se
llaman tempestad.
 Figura 2.

En la parte inferior de la seccin, el rea alrededor de la flecha de la figura 3 es potencialmente

de transicin en alta mar, pero el grano fino acampan dos caras en la parte inferior, Son muy
tpicos de la costa afuera. Si nos movemos por encima de la base de la ola de tormenta
empezamos a ver algunas caractersticas de energa ms altas y los niveles de energa son
intermitentemente ms altos durante las tormentas de las olas tardas y estas ondas de
tormenta de longitud de onda larga generan una estructura sedimentaria distintiva al menos en
arena fina o mediana llamada estratificacin cruzada hummocky.

Figura 3. Facies en alta mar

A menudo abreviado como hcs, aparecen como amplias bvedas anchas que pueden ser de
hasta un metro de dimetro, pero son tpicamente uno a dos metros de ancho y hay unas pocas
decenas de centmetros de alto, dentro de ellos tienen laminados suavemente curvados que
son convexos en Los hommucks tambin son cncavas, estos entornos de trnsito en alta mar
se caracterizan por tormentas de alta energa que son bastante intermitente, puntuando
condiciones de fondo ms continuas de baja energa. Las caras a menudo han entretejido
arenisca con hcs que representa el alto de las tormentas de energa y mudstone u otra clase de
sedimentos de grano fino que representan el tiempo de fondo de la base de las camas de piedra
arenisca de hcs. En la Transicin costa afuera las caractersticas y las estructuras sedimentarias
son intercaladas por areniscas con granos ms finos. Los sedimentos de las areniscas suelen
tener HTS, HTS es una caracterstica muy distintiva de la transicin costa afuera. Si nos movemos
por encima de la base de la onda de Fairweather en el ambiente de la cara de la orilla hay energa
de onda bastante continua de modo que esto significa que el mudstone entre camas desaparece
o se convierte en energa de onda muy rara, aqu incluso las ondas de Fairweather son
suficientemente altas para mantener el barro en suspensin por lo que no se puede depositar.

Vamos a hablar de un par de diferentes tipos de entornos costeros, el primero es el caso de la

hcs, transicin hacia arriba hasta la seccin en una estructura sedimentaria relacionada llamada
sway Lee cross stractification o SCS, SCS ES caracterstica pre-diagnstica de las zonas shoreface
influenciadas por tormenta. Si las tormentas grandes no son muy comunes la cara de la orilla
ser dominada por las ondas de tiempo justo. Las ondulaciones de ondas tienen una seccin
transversal bastante simtrica en contraste con los lados asimtricos de Stoss y Li que se vean
en ondulaciones actuales.

Figura 4.

En realidad hay dos tipos diferentes de ondas onduladas formadas por diferentes procesos, un
montn de ondulaciones de olas tienen una cresta aguda que puede ramificarse y formar
Bifurcaciones como la flecha derecha en la figura 5. El flujo generado por la onda no siempre es
perfectamente bidireccional, puede favorecer una direccin u otra, por lo que las ondulaciones
de las olas pueden contener lminas de inmersin o laminaciones cruzadas dentro de ellas. Las
ondulaciones son bastante simtricas en la seccin transversal y como se ve en las ondulaciones,
tambin pueden tener capas continuas que recubren simtricamente sobre esta cresta.

Figura 5.
El verdadero flujo bidireccional debera producir este tipo de laminado en forma de V, hay un
tipo final de costa para probablemente no muy comn pero s ocurre y esta es una fase corta en
la cual domina la energa actual de la costa. Si las olas golpean el strollin en un ngulo el
componente paralelo de la costa de la energa crea una corriente que fluye continuamente a lo
largo o perpendicular a la lnea de la playa, si esa corriente es bastante fuerte y si las tormentas
son dbiles o ausente los sedimentos short-faced pueden ser dominados por dunas grandes que
estn migrando a lo largo de la orilla y por lo que producen grandes camas transversales planas
probablemente con una direccin paleo corriente perpendicular a la costa. As que la diapositiva
slo resume las estructuras sedimentarias tpicas y diferentes tipos de caras de la orilla, recuerde
que la cara de la orilla ser casi enteramente arenisca con muy poco si hay barro o limo debido
a la onda casi constante o la energa de la costa actual. As que finalmente el ambiente ms
superficial o ms proximal en la zona costera es el ambiente de la playa que es el rea por encima
de la posicin media de la marea baja que incluye la orilla que es el rea entre la marea baja y
alta donde la accin de la ola es relativamente o casi continua y tambin incluye la orilla de atrs
que recibe sedimentos probablemente slo haciendo grandes eventos de tormenta, por lo que
los sedimentos de la costa dominan los depsitos de la playa en el registro de la roca.

La pendiente las olas, algunas de ellas marcadas por las flechas rojas que tiene velocidad rpida
tiene una profundidad de flujo muy superficial y tambin porque tpicamente tienen muy bien
ordenados los granos de arena fina.

Figura6

En la figura 7 hay un ejemplo de depsitos tpicos de la playa donde la alineacin de la separacin

no es visible, es realmente importante el hecho de que la orilla se sumerge lento en un ngulo
bajos, quizs hasta cinco grados en relacin con la flexin del medio ambiente, tambin puede
haber superficies de erosin superficial que erosionan pequeos surcos o valles dentro de este.
 Figura7

Cuando las playas suministradas por sedimentos ms gruesos, la cama del plano superior no se
desarrolla.

Quiero terminar con una breve discusin de una secuencia de la superficie estratigrfica de la
erosin marina, esta superficie se desarrolla de forma desigual en la onda dominado shoreface,
la configuracin durante la cada de los sistemas de la etapa rastreada no se desarrolla en
cualquier otro lugar y por lo tanto es muy distintivo de la etapa descendente en un entorno
marino superficial. En las costas dominadas por las olas el perfil batimtrico o la forma de la cara
de la orilla est fijado por la energa de las olas, hay un perfil cncavo arriba en el cual la cara de
la orilla es ligeramente ms escarpada que la transicin costa, justo antes de que el nivel de base
caiga el perfil del fondo del mar sigue esta lnea de trazos, aqu este perfil de equilibrio de onda
despus de que un cierto nivel caiga se encontrara ahora en la posicin nmero 2 y el nuevo
perfil sera la delgada lnea cncava hacia arriba, por lo que el nuevo perfil est por encima del
anterior o el perfil de equilibrio inicial a la izquierda, Los sedimentos de la costa se acumularn
all en esta cua azul.

Esta superficie erosiva se denomina superficie regresiva de la erosin marina, la superficie a la

izquierda del destino de la costa del punto de la palanca se llama la superficie basal de la
regresin forzada pero no vamos a tratar con ella porque la superficie basal de la regresin
forzada no puede ser reconocido en el afloramiento debido a la sucesin facie es slo una
sucesin gradual o cambio gradual de offshore dicional progra para proga Deschanel transicin
en alta mar para progra sedimentos shoreface dicional o un cambio en el patrn de apilamiento.
La superficie regresiva de la erosin marina es tpicamente muy distintiva que normalmente
separa los granos ms finos de las facies en alta mar, quizs las fases de transicin en alta mar
debajo de la forma de piedra de arena basados sobre la transicin costa afuera est en gran
parte o completamente ausente as que hay una transicin abrupta del tamao del grano que
est potencialmente marcada por signos de la erosin marina como los moldes de cuneta, por
lo que en este ejemplo las caras marinas son las caras por debajo, probablemente representan
los sistemas de seguimiento antes de la cada del nivel de base y las arenas de la cara de la costa
son probablemente parte de del sistema de cada, de modo que en general se puede asumir que
El servicio regresivo de la erosin marina est cubierto por la cada de la etapa o los sedimentos
del SF, aunque esto no es del todo cierto en todas partes.

La erosin marina de servicio regresivo tambin puede formarse en ambientes de carbonatos

como se muestra en este ejemplo, los sedimentos de color gris claro en la base de la seccin
probablemente tienen superficie irregular y encima de l son superficies grises ms oscuras con
la gratificacin abundante de la cruz de Lee del oscilacin.