Sedimentology of a marine intermontane Pleistocene Gilbert-type fan-delta complex in the Crati Basin, Calabria, southern Italy

The Crati Basin is a Pliocene-Holocene extensional basin filled by the progradation of different types of marine fan-delta systems. Coarse-grained Gilbert-type fan-deltas developed during the Pleistocene. They represent the sedimentary response to a strong differential uplift involving the basin margins and the basin itself. The differential uplift was responsible for the fragmentation of the basin into several sub-basins, into which these fan-deltas prograded. The protection and lateral confinement by structural highs, steep coastlines and the absence of strong tidal action in the adjacent Ionian Sea, allowed the regular progradation of these fan-deltas in the restricted gulfs and narrow embayments of the Crati Basin. For the classical Gilbert-type (fan) deltas in lacustrine settings, homopycnal inflow favours a rapid mixing of water masses and deposition of sediment close to the river mouth. In the case of the example described here, the density contrast between the sea water and the inflowing river water caused the separation of the muddy fraction from the coarse sandy and conglomeratic part of the sediment. This allowed the development of steep mud-poor coarse-grained delta foresets. Slope instability features (slump scars, conglomeratic flow slides) are fairly scarce in the proximal parts of the San Lorenzo del Vallo system. Towards the north, where protection from the Ionian Sea was less, they increase in importance.     

Estevâo Cabral's pioneering contribution to open channel hydrometry

Résumé

Le portugais Estevão Cabral (1734–1811) a construit, en 1786, un moulinet lui permettant de mesurer la vitesse de l'eau à différentes profondeurs et de calculer ainsi le débit des rivières. Cabrai a été le premier chercheur qui ait utilisé un moulinet pour mesurer la vitesse de l'eau au-dessous de la surface libre, les moulinets à roue à ailettes planes utilisés auparavant ne pouvant que mesurer la vitesse à la surface. Il a aussi été le premier chercheur à soutenir que la vitesse dans les écoulements a surface libre croît depuis la surface jusqu'à un maximum à partir duquel elle décroît vers le fond.     

The estimation of palaeohydrodynamic processes from subtidal deposits using time series analysis methods

Tidal bundle sequences are the characteristic large-scale cross-bedded sets with mud drapes deposited by strongly asymmetrical bidirectional tidal currents. By means of time series analysis of the bundle thickness of such sequences, the palaeohydrodynamic processes can be reconstructed. This technique involves: (1) Fourier analysis to test the periodicity of the bundle-thickness sequence and to estimate the periods and the phases of the most important periodic components; (2) filtering analysis to resolve the bundle-thickness sequence into different components (i.e. diurnal components, random variations, neap/spring components and longer period variations) and also to estimate the relative importance (amplitude) of each component. From these analyses, useful information can be derived as to the palaeotidal regime (whether semidiurnal or mixed) and also about the possible influence of non-tidal processes, such as storms (their strength, duration, frequency and direction). Results from a subrecent and an ancient example show that tidal currents and storm-induced currents are the most important hydrodynamic processes in the transport and deposition of sediment in these shallow marine environments.