The use of slump structures as palaeoslope orientation estimators

The two main methods of estimating palaeoslope direction from slump structure orientation data are reviewed. The mean axis method takes the downslope direction as the perpendicular to the mean slump fold axis. The separation are method estimates the downslope direction by the bisector of a planar separation angle between groups of slump folds with opposite downplunge asymmetry. The advantages and disadvantages of each method are considered in detail, by reference first to idealized slump fold distributions and then to a compilation of sixty natural slump fold axis distributions, mostly from published data. Among the advantages of the mean axis method are the ease of deriving confidence limits for estimates and its applicability where fold asymmetry data are unavailable. The main advantage of the separation are method is its validity for strongly skewed fold axis samples. The statistical robustness of the mean axis method, however, due to its reliance on average properties of data, makes it more generally reliable than the separation arc method which depends on extreme properties of data. A procedure for determining palaeoslope directions is suggested which reflects the respective strengths of the two methods.     

Tectonics and sedimentation a century later

This paper is one of a series that commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists in 1926. At that time, thought about tectonics and sedimentation was dominated by the ruling hypothesis of continental accretion. Marginal geosynclines were thought to have been filled with sediments derived from borderlands of Precambrian rocks, and then welded tectonically to the continent. In the 1930s, the fundamental distinction noted by Bailey and Jones between graded graywacke- graptolitic slate suites and cross-bedded sandstone-shelly carbonate suites provided a prelude to Krynine's petrographic-tectonic sandstone clans. In the 1940s sedimentary petrography finally emerged from its heavy mineral era to broaden its vistas. Prior notions of evolutionary successions of sediment types linked to a supposed tectonic cycle (e.g. the European ophiolite-flysch-molasse sequence) became more explicit. Refinements of sandstone classifications by Folk, Pettijohn, Gilbert and others, coupled with Krynine's tectonic cycle and the stratigraphic syntheses of Krumbein, Sloss, Dapples, and others, led in the 1940s to the belief that tectonics is the ultimate sedimentary control.Meanwhile the geosyncline had been dissected by Stille and Kay (1936–1951). Ideas about sources of geosynclinal sediments and paleogeography were revised to include volcanic islands and tectonic lands raisedwithin geosynclines rather than borderlands of Precambrian rocks standing outside the geosynclines. In the 1950s and 1960s, sedimentologists exploited the turbidity current revolution and the combined paleocurrent-petrographic approach pioneered by Pettijohn to delineate in detail the paleography and provenances of orogenic belts. Provenance studies have recently reached a high level of sophistication thanks to the efforts of many workers (e.g. Blatt, Crook, Dickinson, Füchtbauer, McBride, Schwab, Suttner, etc.). This work has demonstrated clearly that the cratonic, volcanic and tectonic source land types proposed by Kay had all been important, but to varying degrees at different times and places. When plate tectonics arrived in the late 1960s, sedimentologists were all equipped to reinterpret their rocks using petrographic, paleocurrent and sedimentary structure analyses to help diagnose different types of plate boundaries and to aid in making palinspastic plate restorations. Thus the study of tectonics and sedimentation is alive and thriving a century later.     

Die Bedeutung des Magmas in der Orogenese der südamerikanischen Kordillere

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Berge wachsen sehen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Wie sage ich's Meinen Fachgenossen?

Ohne ZusammenfassungVon verschiedenen Seiten wurde ich angeregt, diese Zeilen, die ich vor einigen Jahren für meine Schüler zusammengestellt hatte, auch anderen werdenden Geologen zugänglich zu machen. Sie richten sich also an die Studierenden unseres Faches. Weitere Beiträge und Anregungen werden dankbar angenommen.     

Die Zusammenhänge zwischen Sedimentation,Regionalrelief und Regionalklima im Rotliegenden des Saar-Nahe-Gebietes

Zusammenfassung Aufgrund der Beschaffenheit und zeitlichen wie räumlichen Verteilung von Merkmalen, die als Klimaindikatoren Verwendung finden können, wird unter Berücksichtigung der Frage, inwieweit sie von der Veränderung des Reliefs beeinflu\t sind, der Versuch unternommen, den vermutlichen Klimaablauf des Rotliegenden im Saar-Nahe-Gebiet aufzuzeigen. Er führt von warmen und wechselfeuchten Verhältnissen im Unterrotliegenden zu einem Klima gleicher Beschaffenheit, aber mit Zunahme von längeren Trockenperioden im Oberrotliegenden.

---

Summary Regarding the nature and the temporal and local distribution of signs, which may be used as climate-indicators and considering the question if they may be influenced by relief, an attempt to reconstruct the probable climate during the Lower Permian in the Saar-Nahe-Senke is made. The development is from warm conditions and changing-humidity in the Lower Rotliegendes to a similar climate with an increase of dry periods in the Upper Rotliegendes.

---

Résumé En raison de la nature et de la répartition dans le temps et l'espace de caractéristiques pouvant Être considérées comme des indicateurs de climat, l'on a essayé de démontrer le développement du climat dans l'Autunien et le Saxonien de la région Rheno-Palatinat. Par ailleurs l'on a tenu compte de savoir dans quelle mesure les caractéristiques ont été influencées par le changement du relief. Le développement va des conditions chaudes et des périodes humides avec des périodes sèches a un climat de mÊme nature mais avec accroissement de plus longues périodes de sécheresse dans le Saxonien.

---

---

Der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft sei auch an dieser Stelle für ihre stete Unterstützung der Arbeiten gedankt.