Non-marine environments

Alluvial Fans
The Start of the Sedimentary Cycle
• Bedrock weathered away from uplifted
areas (mountain ranges)
• Carried away in mountain streams
• Start the process of building up
sedimentary deposits.
• First of these deposits: Alluvial fans
 How do alluvial fans form?
• When a narrow (confined) canyon stream
disgorges onto a valley floor
• Sudden deceleration in flow and in
gradient
– Decreased ability in the stream to carry
coarser material: this is dropped.
• Results in a cone-shaped deposit of
coarse stream sediments, sheet flood
deposits and debris flows: Alluvial Fan
• Alluvial fans best known from arid environments,
where periodic flow occurs in the canyons but
also occur in humid environments.
– Usually triangular in map view and wedge-shaped in
cross section.
– Slopes range from 1 – 25°, average 5-10°.
– The larger the particle size, the steeper the slope.
• Described as “active” when the fan is building or
“inactive” when it is not.
– To be active: must be continued uplift and erosion of
highlands to supply sediment: fault scarps are
common sites of alluvial fans.
 RADIAL FAN SECTION

Typical structure
of an alluvial fan
FAN
SURFACE

RADIAL PROFILE
 Transport of material on alluvial
fans
• Three methods:
– Stream flow
– Debris flow
– Mud flow
 Stream Flow
• In arid environments
• Flash floods in canyons: extreme erosional power.
• As flow velocity decreases, bounders, cobbles and
pebbles are dropped.
• Results in a flow that is choked with more sediment than
it can carry: braided streams form on the fan (dry up
quickly)
• Each flood cuts new channels, filling old ones with
gravel.
• At high flood levels, sand and gravel-rich flow covers the
mid-fan (N.B. no fine material): Sheetflood Deposits
 Stream Flow: Sheetflood deposits
• Typically well sorted, stratified and cross-bedded.
• Commonly form lobes than emerge from the channel at
the intersection point of the fan surface & the channel
profile
• Little silt/ clay so water flows freely through these
deposits without blocking the pores so these lobe
deposits are commonly called sieve deposits
• These become progressively coarser towards the front of
the lobe, where gravel accumulates.
• Sieve deposits are normally proximal/ upper mid-fan
deposits.
Schematic
profile of a
sieve lobe
deposit
 Debris Flow on Alluvial Fans
• When sediment becomes saturated with water:
flows as a viscous plastic mass: behaves like
quicksand
• Debris flow can carry very large boulders and
also clays and fine particles
• Results in very poorly sorted deposits with little
or no stratification
• Sometimes the base of a debris flow shows
inverse grading (grain size increases upwards)
• Generally form lobes in the upper reaches of the
fan.
Mud Flow deposits on alluvial fans
• Where the debris flow is primarily fine
particles
• Forms restricted narrow lobes like debris
flows
• Mudflows that are more fluid can form
enormous sheetflood deposits (>10km/h)
• Very fast moving, very dangerous
deposits.
 Typical depositional structure in
alluvial fans
• Require rapid uplift: commonly found in
– Rapidly downdropping grabens
– Foreland basins
– Strike-slip basins
• Typical profile:
– Mixture of unsorted debris flows
– Stream channel conglomerates (fanglomerates)
– Cross-bedded sandstones
– Sieve deposits
– Commonly coarsen up in the stratigraphic record
• Sequence:
– Cross-bedded ssts of distal fan at base
– Overlain by coarser proximal fan deposits as uplift continues
– Thin fining up sequence of fan decay on top
Can be very thick: 9000m of
fanglomerates at margin of San
Andreas Fault.