The geomorphic dynamics and environmental history of an upper deltaic floodplain tract in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta,California, USA

A multi‐proxy approach was used to examine the geomorphic dynamics and environmental history of an upper deltaic ?oodplain tract in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, California. Three long cores were collected from the McCormack–Williamson Tract (MWT) and these cores were analyzed for bulk density, loss‐on‐ignition, ?ne (clay and silt) content, Al concentration, magnetic susceptibility, pollen, and charcoal. Radiocarbon dates obtained for the cores were converted into calendar years and an age–depth model was constructed. Long‐term vertical accretion and sedimentation rates were estimated from the age–depth model. Cross‐core relations show that coarse sediment generally accumulates more rapidly and has greater magnetic susceptibility compared to ?ne sediment. Percentage ?ne and LOI data show a strong linear relationship that indicates ?ooding is the primary mechanism for the deposition of particular organic matter on the ?oodplain and that landscape wash load has contributed a highly consistent fraction of persistent organic matter averaging 5·5 per cent to the site. Down‐core grain size pro?les show two hydrological domains in the cores, namely millennial ?ne–coarse ?uctuations superimposed on general up‐core ?ning. Coarse sediment is viewed as channel or near‐channel overbank deposits, whereas ?ne deposits are considered to be distal overbank ?ood deposits. The coarse–?ne ?uctuations are indicative of changing depositional settings as channels migrated laterally across MWT, whereas the upward ?ning trend re?ects a combination of self‐limiting overbank deposition as ?oodplain elevation increased and decreasing competence as sea‐level rise reduced ?ood‐pulse energy slopes. MWT has been cross‐cut and incised numerous times in the past, only to have the channels abandoned and subsequently ?lled by ?ne sediment. The channels around MWT attained their modern con?guration about 4000 years ago. MWT likely came under tidal in?uence at about 2500 cal BP. Wetlands have recently developed on MWT, but they are inorganic sediment dominated. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

山西寿阳—阳泉地区石炭—二叠系沉积环境及其沉积特征

本区石炭—二叠系是在海湾背景下发育的一套由滨海平原—三角洲平原—冲积平原沉积组成的海退层系。主要沉积环境是三角洲平原,其上部为冲积平原包括网状河和辫状河;下部为海湾（或分支间湾）、潮下碳酸盐岩、潮间介壳滩、碎屑岩潮坪及滨海沼泽湿地等。三角洲为河控浅水三角洲。上述沉积环境,随海水退却在时空上具明显的规律性变化。     

鲁西河控浅水三角洲沉积体系及煤聚集规律

大型河控浅水三角洲沉积体系发育于鲁西石炭二叠纪含煤地层的上部，是晚古生代大规模海退时期陆源碎屑物质快速推进的产物。在论述鲁西河控浅水三角洲沉积体系的成因相及其内部构成基础上，将其划分为上三角洲平原和下三角洲平原两大部分，前者在鲁西地区发育最好。研究表明，河控浅水三角洲沉积体系经历了由发育到废期两个完整的演化阶段，废弃阶段为聚煤作用最强，成煤期最好的时期。而且，聚煤作用与沉积体系废戏延续的时间有关，     

The deep-lake deposit in the Upper Triassic Yanchang Formation in Ordos Basin, China and its significance for oil-gas accumulation

The deep-lake facies of the Yanchang Formation represents a large outflowing lake basin in the Ordos area. Its deposition can be divided into four stages lake genetic and expanding stage, peak stage, inversion stage and dying stage. All the stages are obviously consistent with the evolution of depositional environment and the paleoclimate in the region. The study indicates that the lake basin has evolution fluctuations from highstand to lowstand for four times in its evolution history, and the deposition center of the lake has not obviously moved, staying along the Huachi-Yijun belt. The deep lake sedimentary system mainly consists of deep water deltas and turbidite fans during the entire evolution course of the lake basin in the Late Triassic. The former mainly developed on the slope of steep shore of the delta in the early period of the deep-water expansion and gradually experienced a big shift from deep-water deltas to shallow-water platform delta. And the latter appeared almost in all the above stages and had two types of turbidite fans, slope-moving turbidite fans and slump turbidite fans. The slope-moving turbidite fans have relatively complete facies belts overlapping one another vertically and consist of the slope channel of inter fans, the turbidite channel, inter turbidite channel and turbidite channel front of middle fans and outer fans (or lakebottom plain). However, the slide-moving turbidity fans are formed in the deep lake with their microfacies difficult to be distinguished, and only the center microfacies and edge microfacies can be determined. The two types of the turbidity fans are similarly distributing in the near-root-slope and far-root-slope regions. The deep-lake deposition governs the distribution of the hydrocarbon and reservoir, while the slope-moving turbidite fans are excellent reservoirs for oil-gas exploration due to their great thickness, widespread distribution and accumulation properties.     

松辽盆地西部斜坡英台地区姚二、三段辫状河三角洲沉积特征研究

松辽地区西部斜坡英台地区姚家组二、三段,是在干旱一半干旱、源近流短、东倾陡坡背景下,在洪积扇前,由辫状河入湖形成的辫状河三角洲沉积。可明显区分出狭窄的辫状河三角洲平原,河口坝不太发育的辫状河三角洲前缘和夹浊积砂的辫状河前三角洲三种沉积亚相。辫状河三角洲平原由灰色含砾砂岩,粗、中砂岩,少量细砂岩,粉砂岩夹紫红色泥岩组成。具有明显的正韵律为特征。辫状河三角洲前缘沉积为灰色-绿灰色中、粗砂岩、细砂岩、少量的含砾砂岩,成正韵律或反韵律夹在灰绿色、灰黑色泥质岩中。辫状河前三角洲沉积多为灰绿色、灰黑色泥质岩,可夹少量砂质浊积岩。上述沉积特征明显地区别于正常河流三角洲沉积和扇三角洲沉积。     

Lower Pleistocene deltaic and marine sediments in boreholes from the central North Sea

Lower Pleistocene sediments recovered in boreholes from the Aberdeen Ground Formation in the central North Sea indicate that the unit was deposited in a delta front to prodelta/shallow, open shelf marine setting. Possible estuarine and clastic nearshore marine deposits have been identified on the western margin of the basin. The delta front sediments consist of interbedded, structureless to laminated sands and muds with organic debris, ferruginous nodules and common soft sediment deformation structures. Sporadic rippled and graded beds, basal scours to beds and starved ripples suggest periodic wave–current reworking. Prodelta/shelf marine sediments are predominantly argillaceous with only occasional thin sand beds and rare phosphatic bands. One exceptionally thick sand body or submarine channel-fill although this remains uncertain. The estuarine/clastic nearshore marine sediments include coarse channel-lag deposits and rippled and laminated subtidal sands. A rich microfossil assemblage recovered from the prodelta/shelf marine sequence indicates that deposition occurred under fluctuating climatic conditions.     

When are relative variograms useful in geostatistics?

The relative variogram has been employed as a tool for correcting a simple kind of nonstationarity, namely that in which local variance is proportional to local mean squared. In the past, this has been linked in a vague way to the lognormal distribution, although if {Z_t; t D}is strongly stationary and normal over a domain D,then clearly {exp (Z_t); t D}will stillbe stationary, but lognormal. The appropriate link is made in this article through a universal transformation principle. More general situations are considered, leading to the use of a scaled variogram.     

A conceptual model of depositional,rather than erosional,tidal channel development in the rapidly prograding Skagit River Delta (Washington,USA)

The origin and growth of blind tidal channels is generally considered to be an erosional process. This paper describes a contrasting depositional model for blind tidal channel origin and development in the Skagit River delta, Washington, USA. Chronological sequences of historical maps and photos spanning the last century show that as sediments accumulated at the river mouth, vegetation colonization created marsh islands that splintered the river into distributaries. The marsh islands coalesced when intervening distributary channels gradually narrowed and finally closed at the upstream end to form a blind tidal channel, or at mid‐length to form two blind tidal channels. Channel closure was probably often mediated through gradient reduction associated with marsh progradation and channel lengthening, coupled with large woody debris blockages. Blind tidal channel evolution from distributaries was common in the Skagit marshes from 1889 to the present, and it can account for the origin of very small modern blind tidal channels. The smallest observed distributary‐derived modern blind tidal channels have mean widths of 0·3 m, at the resolution limit of the modern orthophotographs. While channel initiation and persistence are similar processes in erosional systems, they are different processes in this depositional model. Once a channel is obstructed and isolated from distributary flow, only tidal flow remains and channel persistence becomes a function of tidal prism and tidal or wind/wave erosion. In rapidly prograding systems like the Skagit, blind tidal channel networks are probably inherited from the antecedent distributary network. Examination of large‐scale channel network geometry of such systems should therefore consider distributaries and blind tidal channels part of a common channel network and not entirely distinct elements of the system. Finally, managers of tidal habitat restoration projects generally assume an erosional model of tidal channel development. However, under circumstances conducive to progradation, depositional channel development may prevail instead. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Three‐parameter discontinuous distributions for hydrological samples with zero values

A consistent approach to the frequency analysis of hydrologic data in arid and semiarid regions, i.e. the data series containing several zero values (e.g. monthly precipitation in dry seasons, annual peak flow discharges, etc.), requires using discontinuous probability distribution functions. Such an approach has received relatively limited attention. Along the lines of physically based models, the extensions of the Muskingum‐based models to three parameter forms are considered. Using 44 peak flow series from the USGS data bank, the fitting ability of four three‐parameter models was investigated: (1) the Dirac delta combined with Gamma distribution; (2) the Dirac delta combined with two‐parameter generalized Pareto distribution; (3) the Dirac delta combined with two‐parameter Weibull (DWe) distribution; (4) the kinematic diffusion with one additional parameter that controls the probability of the zero event (KD3). The goodness of fit of the models was assessed and compared both by evaluation of discrepancies between the results of both estimation methods (i.e. the method of moments (MOM) and the maximum likelihood method (MLM)) and using the log of likelihood function as a criterion. In most cases, the DWe distribution with MLM‐estimated parameters showed the best fit of all the three‐parameter models. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of a river delta: a case study of Cimanuk river mouth,Indonesia

This paper describes delta development processes with particular reference to Cimanuk Delta in Indonesia. Cimanuk river delta, the most rapidly growing river delta in Indonesia, is located on the northern coast of Java Island. The delta is subject to ocean waves of less than 1 m height due to its position in the semi‐enclosed Java Sea in the Indonesian archipelago. The study has been carried out using a hydrodynamic model that accounts for sediment movement through the rivers and estuaries. As an advanced approach to management of river deltas, a numerical model, namely MIKE‐21, is used as a tool in the management of Cimanuk river delta. From calibration and verification of hydrodynamic model, it was found that the best value of bed roughness was 0·1 m. For the sediment‐transport model, the calibration parameters were adjusted to obtain the most satisfactory results of suspended sediment concentration and volume of deposition. By comparing the computed and observed data in the calibration, the best values of critical bed shear stress for deposition, critical bed shear stress for erosion and erosion coefficient were 0·05 N m^?2, 0·15 N m^?2, and 0·00001 kg m^?2 s^?1, respectively. The calibrated model was then used to analyse sensitivity of model parameters and to simulate delta development during the periods 1945–1963 and 1981–1997. It was found that the sensitive model parameters were bed shear stresses for deposition and erosion, while the important model inputs were river suspended sediment concentration, sediment characteristics and hydrodynamic. The model result showed reasonable agreement with the observed data. As evidenced by field data, the mathematical model proves that the Cimanuk river delta is a river‐dominated delta because of its protrusion pattern and very high sediment loads from the Cimanuk river. It was concluded that 86% of sediment load from the Cimanuk river was deposited in the Cimanuk delta. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.