Tidal sedimentation from a fluvial to estuarine transition, Douglas Group, Missourian -- Virgilian, Kansas
- Emporia State Univ., Emporia, KS (United States). Dept. of Earth Sciences
- Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS (United States). Kansas Geological Survey
- Kansas State Univ., Manhattan, KS (United States). Dept. of Geology
The Tonganoxie Sandstone Member of the Stranger Formation (Douglas Group, Upper Pennsylvanian, Kansas) was deposited in a funnel-shaped, northeast-southwest-trending paleovalley that was incised during the uppermost Missourian sealevel lowstand and backfilled during the subsequent transgression. Quarry exposures of the Tonganoxie near Ottawa, Kansas, include [approximately] 5 m of sheetlike, vertically accreted siltstones and sandy siltstones, bounded above and below by thin coals with upright plant fossils and paleosols. Strata range from submillimeter-thick, normally graded rhythmites to graded bedsets up to 12.5 cm thick with a vertical sedimentary structure sequence (VSS) consisting of the following intervals: (A) a basal massive to normally graded interval; (B) a parallel-laminated interval; (C) a ripple-cross-laminated interval; and (D) an interval of draped lamination. The Tonganoxie succession has many similarities to fluvial overbank/floodplain deposits: sheetlike geometry, upright plant fossils, lack of bioturbation and body fossils, dominance of silt, and a punctuated style of rapid sedimentation from suspension-laden waning currents. Analysis of stratum-thickness variations through the succession suggests that tides significantly influenced sediment deposition. A fluvial-to-estuarine transitional depositional setting is interpreted for the Tonganoxie by analogy with modern depositional settings that show similar physical and biogenic sedimentary structures, vertical sequences of sedimentary structures, and aggradation rates.
- OSTI ID:
- 5950220
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Sedimentary Petrology; (United States), Vol. 63:5; ISSN 0022-4472
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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