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Understanding how sedimentary rocks represent time is one of the significant challenges in sedimentology. Sedimentation rates retrieved from vertical sections are strongly timescale dependent, which means that we cannot use empirical rate data derived from vertical sections in modern environments to interpret the temporal structure of ancient sedimentary deposits. We use the Lower to Middle Campanian Blackhawk Formation deposits in eastern Utah and western Colorado as a natural laboratory to test a source-to-sink methodology circumventing this timescale dependence by relating modern progradation rates to the deltaic shoreline progradation of ancient siliciclastic rocks. Our objective is to quantify how much time is needed to account for the observed cumulative deltaic shoreline progradation recorded by the shallow-marine sandstone bodies of the Blackhawk Formation in terms of progradation rates derived from comparable modern deltaic systems. By making the simplifying assumption that the Blackhawk Formation rocks were deposited along a linear coastline that only grew by aggradation and progradation, it is possible to argue that the stratigraphic completeness of two-dimensional dip-oriented stratigraphic cross-sections through these deposits should be high. Furthermore, we hypothesise that delta progradation estimates capture a significant portion of the biostratigraphically and radiometrically constrained duration of the succession. By comparing the recorded progradation with modern progradation rates, we estimate that we need ca. 20% (median value, with minimum and maximum estimates of 2% and 300%) of the time available from biostratigraphic and radiometric dating to account for the progradation recorded by the sedimentary deposits. This indicates that long-term progradation rates averaged over the entire duration of the Blackhawk Formation were only a factor of five times slower than the modern progradation rates derived from observations over periods that are five to six orders of magnitude shorter. We conclude that a significant amount of time is represented by prograding deltaic shoreline deposits and that by considering the cumulative shoreline progradation, we could limit the effects of timescale dependence on the rate estimates used in our analysis. publishedVersion

Empirical rate data show that aggradation and progradation rates are negatively correlated with the duration they are averaged over. This means that we cannot understand deep time sedimentation rates in terms of the abundant rate data we have from modern environments. We are addressing this by investigating how growth of a sediment volume in multiple directions affects time-averaged accumulation rates that do not necessarily measure all directions of growth. We derive a mathematical model from mass-balance considerations of a sedimentary deposit that grows without erosion. We show that the non-linear relationship between the lengths, areas and volumes of growing objects require that time-averaged sedimentation rates are time-scale dependent when a deposit grows in multiple directions. We generate rate compilations from simple synthetic stratigraphies, which show that we can reproduce the empirical rate compilations by requiring only that deposition occur in a dynamic mosaic of sequential patches in which the areal extent of deposition increases with time-scale as described by our mathematical model. Our model has two implications with application in stratigraphic analysis. The first is that it provides a theoretical model of why we cannot expect high stratigraphic completeness if we measure a deposit in fewer directions than it has grown. The second is that it provides a framework by which to attribute anomalies in the stratigraphic completeness of a one-dimensional or two-dimensional sample to scaling effects or erosional hiatuses.

Source at https://dx.doi.org/10.17850/njg006. © Copyright the authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The Lower Cretaceous succession in Svalbard is commonly considered as an important analogue to age-equivalent strata on the Barents Shelf which are sporadically targeted by exploration wells. In this study, the stratigraphic and genetic relationship between the Rurikfjellet (open marine), Helvetiafjellet (paralic) and Carolinefjellet (open marine) formations of the Lower Cretaceous succession in Svalbard is evaluated by combining sedimentological outcrop studies with well log and core data across Nordenskiöld Land, central Spitsbergen. Sedimentological characteristics and stratigraphic units are mapped within a refined dinocyst biostratigraphic framework, enabling relatively well-constrained palaeogeographic reconstructions. The Valanginian–lowermost Barremian Rurikfjellet Formation consists of a lower shale-dominated unit of offshore origin which grades upwards into storm-reworked lower shoreface sandstones displaying hummocky cross-stratification. Local occurrences of prodeltaic successions and thick successions of gravity flow deposits containing coal-bearing slump blocks of delta plain origin in some wells, reveal a late Hauterivian progradational pulse which has previously not been recorded in Svalbard. The lower Barremian– lower Aptian Helvetiafjellet Formation consists of fluvial braidplain and paralic deposits which rest unconformably on the Rurikfjellet Formation across the entire study area, reflecting regional uplift and widespread subaerial exposure prior to the onset of paralic deposition. The Helvetiafjellet Formation exhibits increased marine influence upwards, and in the investigated cores the uppermost part of the unit consists of wave-reworked mouth-bar deposits which are truncated by a transgressive conglomerate lag dominated by extrabasinal lithic clasts and intraformational siderite clasts. An up to 10 m-thick, regionally extensive, organic-rich (TOC up to 2.1 wt.%) shale unit of early Aptian age marks the base of the overlying Carolinefjellet Formation. The shale accumulated during a regional flooding event which drowned and eventually transformed the Helvetiafjellet Formation coastal plain into a shallow shelf. The organic facies of the shale unit (Type II–III kerogen) and a high Pr/Ph ratio (>2), in combination with abundant long-chained n-alkanes, suggest that the unit was deposited in a suboxic paralic marine environment strongly influenced by input of terrestrial organic matter. The investigated succession exhibits stratigraphic and petrographic resemblance to age-equivalent strata in NE Greenland, suggesting that these successions may have formed part of the same drainage system located on the northwestern margin of the Barents Shelf. Thus, by highlighting the Early Cretaceous palaeogeographic evolution in Svalbard, this study contributes to the regional stratigraphic understanding of the Lower Cretaceous succession on the wider northern Barents Shelf

We present a compilation of modern shoreline progradation rates measured close to river outlets entering deltaic coastlines, and we discuss how these observations relate to the overall evolution of both modern and ancient deltaic coastlines. We analyzed Landsat‐derived satellite images to identify plan view changes in the subaerial morphology of 331 modern deltaic coastlines. Our rate compilation (km2/year) had a lognormal distribution with parameters μ = −1.85 and σ2 = 1.01. We found that the rate data could be predicted to within an order of magnitude by an empirically derived power law using only fluvial water discharge and suspended sediment load as input parameters (rpro=10-2.3Q0w59Q0s34). We justified this river‐centric model of our progradation rates by assuming that delta progradation rates measured close to river outlets were more reflective of fluvial processes than of basinal processes, and preliminary tests supported this assumption. Our rate compilation and empirical model could provide useful constraints to guide stratigraphic analysis of ancient source‐to‐sink systems and to build analog and numerical models.