Geo-Mar Lett (2011) 31:101108 DOI 10.

1007/s00367-010-0218-7

ORIGINAL

Generation of tidal bedding in a circular flume experiment: formation process and preservation potential of mud drapes
Tomoyuki Sato & Keisuke Taniguchi & Tomohiro Takagawa & Fujio Masuda

Received: 4 January 2010 / Accepted: 18 August 2010 / Published online: 29 August 2010 # Springer-Verlag 2010

Abstract Flume experiments aimed to produce flaser bedding were conducted using fine sand and clay in a circular flume. The formation process of mud drapes during the slack-water stage was revealed in detail. When the tidal current declines, a uniform mobile mud layer initially settles from suspension and drapes the entire rippled sand bed (type A mud). When the remaining flow velocity is very low, a more fluid mud begins to settle out (type B mud) that preferentially fills the ripple troughs, the ripples and mud together forming a flat surface. At slack tide, the two-phase mud drape is temporarily stationary. After the onset of the reversed flow phase, most of the type B mud is resuspended, while the type A mud is eroded from the crests, leaving behind a remnant mud drape (flaser) in the troughs that is subsequently buried by migrating ripples. Type B mud generally contains variable amounts of sand derived from eroded ripple crests, but does not show any visible internal sedimentary structures. Type A mud represents the mud drapes commonly described in the literature, the temporary existence of type B mud having gone unnoticed because of its low preservation potential.
T. Sato (*) Institute of Geology and Geoinformation, Geological Survey of Japan, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba 3058567 Ibaraki, Japan e-mail: tomoyuki-sato@aist.go.jp K. Taniguchi : F. Masuda Department of Environmental Systems Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan T. Takagawa Department of Civil Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

When present, it can be recognized by its sand content and the occurrence of flame structures in ripple troughs. Tidal deposits reflecting the existence and depositional characteristics of both type A and type B mud are found in, for example, the macrotidal Oligocene Ashiya Group, Japan.

Introduction Flaser, wavy, and lenticular bedding have been observed and documented from both modern and ancient tidal environments since the early 20th Century (e.g., Richter 1931; Schwarz 1933; Hntzschel 1936; Reineck 1960; Reineck and Wunderlich 1968; Tessier 1993; Li et al. 2000; also see Flemming 2003 for an overview). By contrast, the characteristic sedimentary structures produced in the course of ebbflood and neapspring tidal cycles have only been recognized in the late 20th Century (Visser 1980). Such structures have subsequently become a very useful tool in the reconstruction of paleoenvironments and associated tidal regimes (e.g., Terwindt 1981; Allen and Homewood 1984; Yang and Nio 1985; de Boer et al. 1988; Tessier and Gigot 1989; Williams 1991; Smith et al. 1991; Flemming and Bartholom 1995). However, in many cases the tidal bedding shows truncated tidal cycles either because of incomplete formation due to intermittent intertidal subaerial exposure (Dalrymple and Makino 1989; Tessier 1993; Archer and Johnson 1997), or because of reworking by subsequent tidal currents and/or storm events. It is therefore often difficult to fully reconstruct paleotidal regimes on the basis of such incomplete or reworked tidal deposits. For this reason, some more recent investigations have specifically focused on the preservation potential of tidal bedding (e.g., Davis and Flemming 1995; Li et al. 2000; Fan and Li 2002; Chang et al. 2006).

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Most of these studies present field evidence for either high or low preservation potential, or discuss the relationships between depositional type and flow velocity (Allen 1982) without, however, providing detailed information on the sedimentary processes involved. The formation of mud drapes, in particular, has received little attention, although mud deposition in general has been investigated in a number of flume experiments (e.g., Terwindt et al. 1968; Terwindt and Breusers 1972; Hawley 1981). These have mostly concentrated on critical shear stresses and the degree of erosion of mud in deposits characterized by flaser and wavy bedding to explain the preservation of mud drapes under ebbflood cycles. Nevertheless, over the last 1020 years our understanding of the dynamics of mud transport and deposition has greatly improved. Especially the importance of fluid mud occurrence in many coastal and shelf environments has now been recognized (e.g., Shi et al. 1997; Wheatcroft and Borgeld 2000; Dalrymple et al. 2003; Poppe et al. 2008; Schettini et al. 2010). Fluid mud has also been reported for ancient tide-influenced estuarine deposits (e.g., Ichaso and Dalrymple 2009), and beneath the turbidity maximum zone of modern estuaries (e.g., Schrottke et al. 2006). The purpose of the present study, therefore, was to develop a processresponse model for flaser bedding based on flume experiments in order to improve paleoenvironmental reconstructions in the context of fluid mud dynamics and, in particular, to obtain greater insights into the mechanisms of mud drape formation and preservation under conditions of high suspended particle concentrations.

Plan view

Vertical cross section (mm) 680 Paddle 450 Deposit Motor 140

Frame Arm

100

Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of the circular flume used in this study. The upper panel shows a plan view and the lower a vertical cross-section

Materials and methods Circular flume The circular flume apparatus at the Geo-environmental Science and Technology Laboratory, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan, was used in this study (Fig. 1). This flume was designed for the study of sedimentary processes under long-period oscillatory flows (Takagawa 2007). The conduit is circular in plan view and rectangular in crosssection. The outer diameter of the conduit is 1.5 m, the inner diameter 1.2 m, and the average circumference 4.3 m; the width is 14 cm and the depth 45 cm. The sidewalls consist of transparent acrylic plastic so that sedimentary structures and processes are visible, and the top of the apparatus is open to enable sediment and water supply during experiments. Flow is generated by rotating paddles dipping into the upper layer of the water in the conduit. Current velocity and oscillatory flow can be controlled by changing the speed and direction of paddle movement. The paddles can also be

adjusted vertically to maintain a constant distance between the uppermost sediment surface and the paddles under both aggradational and erosional conditions. Circular flumes have become popular in the study of cohesive sediment deposition, because flow can be sustained over long periods without the interfering effects of pumping (Lau and Krishnappan 1994; Sumner et al. 2008). In this way, sand transport and ripple migration can be sustained over long periods without needing complicated devices to recirculate the sand in the system. Experimental conditions Flaser bedding was generated by engaging oscillatory flow at constant water depth. The period of flow in each direction was 15 min, a full oscillation cycle thus amounting to 30 min. In each case, the maximum paddle-generated velocity was 0.40 m/s (Fig. 2). Water depth over the sediment surface was 35 cm, and the immersion depth of the paddles was 7 cm. Freshwater at room temperature was used in the experiment. We simulated subtidal, symmetrical tidal currents in the experimental setting. Because full simulations of tidal conditions in flume experiments are impossible, we simplified the procedure as follows: the maximum velocity (0.40 m/s) was chosen to be in the ripple stability field (Southard and Boguchwal 1990). We chose an oscillation period of 30 min to represent a semidiurnal tidal cycle of

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0.40

103

Paddle velocity (m/s)

0.20 0.10 0 -0.10 -0.20

-0.40 0 20 40 60 80

Time (minute)

Fig. 2 Temporal stepwise changes in paddle velocity (surface velocity) simulating reversing tidal currents. Gray lines represent the timing of sediment supply

12 h 25 min. Although this is much shorter than a real tidal cycle, the purpose was to keep the high-velocity stage in which ripple migration occurs short enough to limit ripple migration to about one wavelength. This was necessary in order to avoid the destruction of flasers due to prolonged ripple migration, in the course of which successive ripple troughs would excavate and erode previously formed flaser bedding. Furthermore, the purpose of this experiment was to reveal phenomena occurring around the slack-water stage that would give information about the processresponse mechanism controlling the formation of flaser bedding. Further effects of the high-velocity stage were of no concern in this study. As the duration of the slack-water phase affects the thickness and the degree of consolidation of mud (Terwindt and Breusers 1972, 1982; Hawley 1981), it was also chosen to be shorter than that in nature because this effect would otherwise have masked our experiment. Because in nature there are commonly weak residual currents present due to wave action and local turbulence, mud may have been prevented from depositing. In the present study, we assess the formation process of flaser bedding in a qualitative manner, because the rates of erosion and critical shear stress differ in comparison to natural conditions. Quartz sand was used as bed material, the median diameter and the sorting being 2.12 phi (230 m) and 0.20 phi, respectively, as determined by settling tube analysis and logarithmic moment measures (Folk and Ward 1957; Naruse 2005). To visually accentuate any crosslamination, a small quantity of fine-grained heavy mineral sand, largely magnetite, was mixed into the sand. Kaolin with a mean diameter of 7.8 phi (4.5 m) was used as mud. In order to produce results suitable for comparisons with known examples, the sediment composition was chosen to be similar to that of the flaser bedding observed in the

Oligocene Ashiya Group of western Japan (Sakakura and Masuda 2001; Sato and Makino 2006). Before the experimental run, an initial run was carried out with a sand bed of about 5 cm in thickness and a watermud mixture of 10 g/l mud concentration. An upper plane bed was established by generating highvelocity unidirectional flow of more than 0.50 m/s. After stable upper plane bed conditions were established, the velocity was gradually decreased to the 0.40 m/s required at the start of the experiment. At this initial flow condition, current ripples developed and migrated downstream, the mud concentration in the water being kept constant at 10 g/l. Beginning with an initial paddle-induced velocity of 0.40 m/s, the flow was decreased in steps through 0.20, 0.10, and 0.050 m/s over the first quarter-cycle lasting 7.5 min, before the flow direction and the procedure were reversed, the next semi-cycle (corresponding to a single tide) lasting 15 min. In this way, a full tidal cycle (two tides) was simulated by an oscillation period of 30 min. During the maximum velocity stages, additional sand was fed into the flume to increase the bed thickness by 1 cm (Fig. 2), while the mud concentration remained unchanged. The development of internal sediment structures was documented by photographs and video recordings of cross-sections visible through the transparent sidewall. The run ended after 80 min, i.e., shortly after the maximum velocity stage of the third reversed flow cycle, in all covering ca. 2.75 oscillation periods.

Results Observed sedimentary structures In the course of the 80-min experimental run, the sand in the flume showed well-developed flaser bedding in crosssection (Fig. 3) comprising ripple cross-laminated sand layers draped in mud. Two types of cross-laminae can be distinguished, right- and left-inclined ones, the two having always developed alternately. They are usually separated from each other by intervening mud drapes or erosion surfaces, together producing a herringbone structure. The average thickness of each sand layer is about 1 cm, which is equivalent to the accumulation rate controlled by the amount of sediment supply. The flaser-structured mud drapes are concave upward and a few millimeters thick. Some flasers are bifurcated, although in most cases they are neither laterally nor vertically in contact with each other, and individual flasers are commonly less than 7 cm long. These structures correspond to the category of simple or bifurcated flaser bedding in the classification of Reineck and Wunderlich (1968).

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Stage 2

Fig. 3 Cross-section of the resultant deposit after 80 min, photographed through the transparent sidewall

Most of the sand layers have flat-topped ripples as a result of erosion of the crests. Several mud clasts, a few millimeters in diameter, can be found deposited on foreset laminae as a result of reworking. Some mud drapes have sandy sections with flame structures occurring only in the troughs, although little sand is contained within the main body of the mud drapes. The contacts between the sand-rich parts and the main body of the drapes are clearly visible, although they do not represent erosion surfaces. After the experimental run, the surface of the sand bed was covered by ripples that were draped by a continuous thin mud layer. This can be taken to represent the situation during each slack-water stage. The wavelength and height of the ripples are about 20 cm and under 5 cm, respectively. The crests and the troughs are rounded. In addition, most of the ripples have a nearly symmetrical shape. The current ripples produced in this flume tend to have symmetrical shapes and rounded crests (Takagawa 2007), although current ripples generally have asymmetrical shapes and steep crests (Tanner 1967). The mechanism producing more symmetrical structures is associated with weak secondary flow caused by the curvature of the conduit. Formation of mud drapes and flaser bedding The formation of mud drapes and flaser bedding was reconstructed on the basis of the continuous observations and documentations during the flume experiment. Six evolutionary stages can be differentiated in terms of the dominant sedimentary reaction to the changing flow velocity (Fig. 4). Stage 1 Current ripples formed in the sediment and migrated downstream, driven by the initial high-velocity unidirectional flow. The ripples were equivalent to those observed on the sand bed at the end of the experimental run. The ripple migration rate was 510 cm/min and depended on the local current velocity, and the non-uniform structure of the underlying sand

Stage 3

Stage 4

Stage 5

layers that had ripples and mud drapes deposited during earlier stages of the experiment. During each decelerating flow phase, ripple migration stopped and mud immediately began to deposit from suspension. The thickness of the mud drape gradually increased, the sedimentation rate being almost equal over troughs and crests. The upper surface of the mud drape was smooth and sharp, the mud containing very little sand. On account of its form, grain-size composition, and grain sorting, the mud deposited during this stage probably corresponds to the mud drapes commonly described in the published literature. This type of mud deposit is referred to as mud A in the present study. When the mud reached a few millimeters in thickness, the depositional process changed. Mud no longer deposited at the crest, deposition instead increasing in the troughs. The mud deposited in the troughs is here referred to as mud B. The color of mud B was observed to be darker, because of a higher water content. Although this mud also deposited from suspension, it was more fluid than mud A and thus slid down from the crests into the troughs in a kind of gravity-driven flow. Mud B also contained little sand and remained unconsolidated. Unlike mud A, its surface was not sharp but instead undulating as a result of its gravitational flow to the troughs. The boundary between muds A and B was sharp, and easily recognizable due to the difference in color. With the onset of reversed flow, mud B became liquefied and fully stirred by the current shear. As flow accelerated, the amount of mud B in the troughs gradually decreased because of resuspension induced by the stirring. By contrast, mud A on the crests was not stirred but was instead gradually eroded from the surface, thereby leaving remnants in the troughs that have been identified as flasers (cf. below). Once exposed, the underlying sand on the crests was also easily eroded. As a result, sand became suspended and was subsequently mixed into mud B upon redeposition in the ripple troughs. In this phase, mud B incorporated sand particles without showing any visible internal sedimentary structure (Figs. 4 and 5). When the flow velocity became strong enough to form vortices on the lee sides of the ripple crests, most of mud B became resuspended. Where mud B had a higher sand content, however, it was more resistant to resuspension. This stage was

Geo-Mar Lett (2011) 31:101108 Fig. 4 Schematic stepwise mud drape formation process, with photographic documentation of the corresponding cross-sections
Stage 1 Ripple migration Strong tidal current

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Ripple migration

Ripple migration

Stage 2 Draping Mud A

Weak tidal current Suspension Suspension

Stage 3 Flat filling Suspension Mud B

Very weak tidal current Suspension

Stage 4 Stirring

Weak tidal current

Stirring

Stirring

Stage 5 Erosion Vortex

Tidal current Vortex Erosion Vortex

Stage 6 Burying

Strong tidal current

Ripple migration

Ripple migration

Ripple migration

rather short, and difficult to distinguish from stages 4 and 6. Stage 6 At peak flow, sand was rapidly mobilized at the crests, and newly formed ripples started to migrate downstream and bury the mud that had remained in the troughs. This stage gradually transformed the bed to the situation described in stage 1. As the ripples migrated, they truncated the previous set of ripples a short distance above the troughs. As a result, and in most cases, only mud A in the troughs (the flasers) and the lower part of the former current ripples were preserved. Sometimes a small amount of mud B was also preserved if it was not resuspended before the new ripples formed and migrated across the

trough. In such cases, flame structures developed on the upper surfaces of the trapped mud B. By contrast, the upper surfaces of mud A were always sharp, and flame structures were never observed.

Discussion In this study, a processresponse model for the formation of flaser bedding is proposed on the basis of the flume observations outlined above. The resultant deposits and the formation process observed during this experiment are overall consistent with the generally less detailed observations reported in the literature (e.g., Visser 1980; de

106 Fig. 5 Photograph (a) and sketch (b) of mud drape evolution during stage 4. Note the successive formation of two types of mud drapes here called type A and type B mud. Mud B contains sand particles and has a low preservation potential. The sand particles are mixed into the mud from suspension due to current stirring of mud B

Geo-Mar Lett (2011) 31:101108

Mixed sand particles

2 cm

Very weak current

Resuspension
Sand

Stirring
Sand

Mud B Mud clasts

2 cm

Mud A Preserved mud drape

Morbray and Visser 1984; Nio and Yang 1991). However, the mechanism of mud drape formation reconstructed from the observations in the present flume study is clearly more differentiated than that of previous models. The experiment revealed that the mud deposited during the slack-water stage can be subdivided into two successive layers, here called muds A and B, which previous models have failed to recognize. As a consequence, previous studies have discussed the formation of mud drapes (and flasers) purely on the basis of the preserved mud (mostly representing type A mud) in both modern and ancient tidal deposits. This unawareness of the temporary existence of a second, more fluid mud layer (type B mud) means that the occurrence and causal explanation of flame structures, for example, have been misinterpreted and misrepresented. A comparison of the observations presented in this study with ancient tidal counterparts reveals some depositional structures that are consistent with the new model. A good example are the exposures of the Oligocene Ashiya Group, western Japan, which were deposited in a macrotidal setting (Sakakura and Masuda 2001; Sato and Makino 2006). In this sedimentary sequence, some mud drapes with flaser bedding have high sand contents without showing any visible internal sedimentary structure (Fig. 6). The sand in these mud drapes can be explained by the mixing process outlined in stage 4 of the new model. Previous models do not explain the presence of such sand in structureless mud. One would normally expect an upward-fining pattern and the presence of laminae if sand particles were to be deposited at slack tide without additional stirring of the mud. Other mud drapes in the Ashiya Group are also

(a)

5 cm (b)

5 cm

(c) Flame structure

Flame structure
Fig. 6 Photographs and sketch of tidal deposits from the Oligocene Ashiya Group. a Remnant sandy mud drapes producing flaser bedding. Note that the mud drapes contain sand particles but are otherwise structureless. b Flaser or wavy bedding with flame and herringbone structures. The flame structures are restricted to the mud drapes developed in the troughs. c Sketch of b

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consistent with the new model. Thus, in some places the mud drapes in the troughs are thicker than elsewhere, only these drapes being associated with flame structures (Fig. 6). As outlined above, these can easily be explained by the preservation of some type B mud in the troughs, the flame structures resulting from the higher water content of these muds. The model proposed in this study now explains the hydraulic conditions prevailing during the formation of flaser bedding. Mud drapes with a high sand content indicate sand suspension within the ambient water during the initial stage of each ebb and/or flood phase. The origin of such sand can be a nearby river flood, drift sand, ripple crest erosion, etc. In addition, the preservation of type B mud with flame structures in the troughs is an indication of the weak erosional power of lee-side vortices and/or rapid burial by migrating ripples. The exact cause for the presence of such structures may be determined from detailed facies analysis on a case-by-case basis. We regard mud B as representing fluid mud. For example, Schrottke et al. (2006) reported fluid mud in the Weser estuary turbidity zone. The fluid mud was observed to deposit only in troughs of bedforms during slack-water periods, and the preservation potential was low because of subsequent resuspension by tidal currents. These characteristics are concordant with those of mud B in this study. According to our experiments, deposition of thin mobile mud under fluid mud, and the stirring of fluid mud just before resuspension can be expected to occur in such estuarine systems. As an example of ancient settings, Ichaso and Dalrymple (2009) reported fluid mud in tideinfluenced mouth bar deposits of the Jurassic Tilje Formation. The fluid mud is explained to have been deposited during tidal slack-water periods with high river discharge. According to our experimental observations, the mud can be regarded as representing preserved mud B due to high river discharge, the presence of mobile mud (mud A) being expected to occur in the lowermost part. The dark color of the lowermost parts of the mud (<5 mm thick) is concordant with our findings (cf. Fig. 2c in Ichaso and Dalrymple 2009). Likewise, the mud drapes in the Ashiya Group described above represent preserved fluid mud, thus indicating the presence of fluid mud at the time of deposition.

below a critical level shortly before slack tide. It forms a drape over the entire rippled surface. Type B mud is a more fluid, less concentrated mud that settles out after mud A, and mostly fills ripple troughs. Upon flow reversal, type B mud is usually resuspended from the troughs, while type A mud is eroded from ripple crests. As a result, remnants of type A mud are left behind in ripple troughs where they form flaser bedding upon burial by migrating ripples. Since type B mud has a very low preservation potential, its temporary existence has gone unnoticed in previous studies. When preserved in ripple troughs, however, it can be identified by a higher sand content, a lack of internal sedimentary structures, and the development of flame structures along its surface in cross-section.

Acknowledgements We are grateful to B. Flemming and S. Gao for stimulating discussions. We would like to thank B. Tessier and two anonymous referees for their constructive comments on not only contents but also composition, which greatly improved this manuscript. T. Sato is indebted to K. Takemura for financial support to this study, which was funded via a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) Project Number 15204045. This study was also funded via a Research Fellowships for Young Scientists (Project Number 17-2148) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

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