Deposition of the Bear Gulch Limestone: a Carboniferous Plattenkalk from central Montana

The Carboniferous Bear Gulch Limestone of the central Montana Big Snowy Trough is a lithographic limestone analogous to the plattenkalk carbonates of the Mesozoic European/Middle Eastern Tethyan belt. It contains an excellently preserved chitinous and phosphatic marine fauna. Petrographic and field studies synthesized with palaeontological data provide insights into depositional history. Tectonic activity initiated development of small en echelon basins. Rims of these basins were sites of high primary productivity. Photosynthesis by subtidal cyanobacterial mats and algae caused in situ precipitation of micrite. Cyanobacteria and algae also provided a food source for benthic and nektonic organisms, which provided food for predators. Respiration in turn provided carbon dioxide for continued photosynthesis. Thus a balanced ecosystem evolved. Productivity in the water column used up available oxygen, resulting in dysaerobic to anaerobic conditions in the bottom waters and sediments. This plus high sedimentation rates of carbonate ooze transported downslope, aided in preservation of whole-body fossils. There are no likely modern analogues known for the Bear Gulch Limestone. However, comparisons with Mesozoic plattenkalke demonstrate that it is most closely analogous to those deposited in shallow water back-reef areas of the Tethyan carbonate platform, rather than to those deposited in the deeper water shelf-edge environment. This is in agreement with the water depth of roughly 40 m estimated for the Bear Gulch Limestone.     

Environmental gradients in carbonate sediments and rocks detected by correspondence analysis: examples from the Recent of Norway and the Dinantian of southwest England

Continuous sedimentary gradients are only crudely expressed by standard facies and microfacies methods which are more appropriate to situations where changes occur in relatively discrete steps. In carbonate sediments and rocks, continuous gradients are often represented by the arrangement of component grain types in a relay, that is, a systematic shifting of the relative importance of the components. Subdivision of such relays into (micro)facies can only be arbitrary. Correspondence analysis is shown to be useful for detecting, isolating and describing relays. Particular use is made of the arch effect in which samples and components from data sets with a strong unidimensional structure (a relay) plot in the form of an arch in the plane of the first two factor axes. A relay index, indicating the position of samples in the relay, can be extracted from the analysis and plotted on maps and stratigraphic logs to reveal details of the sedimentary gradient in areal and/or stratigraphic context. Examples are given from: (i) Recent shallow-marine carbonate sediments from northern Norway, illustrating a relatively simple depositional setting where surface sediments are viewed in plan; and (ii) Lower Carboniferous carbonates of southwest England, representing a more complex regional study of a particular stratigraphic interval viewed in cross-section. In both examples the relays can be related to identifiable environmental gradients.     

The relationship of sediment transport rates and paths to sandbanks in a tidally dominated area off the coast of East Anglia, U.K.

ABSTRACT Sand transport measurements of bedload and suspended load in the Sizewell-Dunwich Banks area, East Anglia have shown that the suspended mode is dominant. The depth-integrated spring tidal residual is 5.66 g cm⁻¹ sec⁻¹, although the neap rate is only one-fifth of this. The calculated bedload transport rates also vary, from 0.012 to 0.040 g cm⁻¹ sec⁻¹, correlating with changing meteorological conditions.
In order to predict the bedload sediment circulation pattern from midwater current meter measurements, five sediment transport equations were calibrated, using fluorescent dyed sand. Yalin's relationship gave the best estimates. The bed shear stress was determined by extrapolating the velocity profile as a power law relationship, with an exponent equal to 0.1, from midwater down to 2 m and as a lognormal profile from 2 m to the sea-bed. Roughness length values appropriate to the substrate were used.
Although bedload transport residuals are mainly to the south, the banks trend northwards from the coast and have also elongated in this direction. This is thought to be in response to the dominance of the suspended sediment transport. It is suggested that a tidal residual eddy mechanism is responsible for the banks'maintenance, similar to the process operating in Start Bay, Devon. The well-documented westward movement of the banks is likely to be related to wave processes.     

Ponga, Glass and Concrete

In accepting that Aotearoa is no-longer a rural nation there are exciting possibilities for the study of urban socio-cultural geography - the effects of urbanisation on the lives ofNewZealanders. Contemporary social geographical theories have combined with postmodernism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism and feminism toproducea ‘new cultural geography’. We argue that this new cultural geography couldprovide important theoretical avenues for the development of an ‘indigenous’ New Zealand urban socio-cultural geography.