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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

Journal of Sedimentary Research (SEPM)

Abstract


Journal of Sedimentary Research
Vol. 77 (2007), No. 2. (February), Pages 110-123
Research Articles: Fluvial-Deltaic Sediments

Middle Holocene Avulsion-Belt Deposits in the Central Rhine–Meuse Delta, The Netherlands

Bart Makaske, Henk J.A. Berendsen, Mark H.M. van Ree

Abstract

The Schoonrewoerd fluvial system in the central Rhine–Meuse delta was active as a Rhine distributary between 3900 and 3800 14C years BP. Based on planform patterns, cross-sectional facies architecture, reconstructed paleodischarge, and its short period of activity, the Schoonrewoerd fluvial system is interpreted to represent a failed avulsion.

The Schoonrewoerd system consists of a complex of (ribbon) channel sand bodies encased in a lens of clayey deposits, and it can be traced for more than 35 km in a downstream direction. Prominent features of the system are longitudinal facies-architecture change, with channel sand-body width/thickness ratio decreasing downstream from ~ 40 to 5, and high lateral facies variability. Multiple anastomosing sand bodies occur in its upper and middle reaches. Paleodischarge reconstruction indicates that the Schoonrewoerd system was only a minor distributary within the Rhine–Meuse deltaic system. Specific stream power in the lower reach is estimated to have been low (0.5 to 1.8 W/m2). The short period of activity of the Schoonrewoerd system suggests that very high floodplain sedimentation rates were associated with the avulsion process, with the formation of meters-thick fine-grained sedimentary successions in ~ 100 years.

The facies architecture of the short-lived Schoonrewoerd system is interpreted to reflect the first stages of avulsion (broadly analogous to the modern Saskatchewan River avulsion in Canada; Smith et al. 1989, Sedimentology, v. 36, p. 1–23), having escaped from later erosion by a more mature channel belt. Many other systems (often partly eroded) with similar facies architecture exist in the west-central Rhine–Meuse delta, suggesting that "avulsion-belt deposits" are a major component of the Holocene delta deposits. The facies-architecture model of the Schoonrewoerd avulsion-belt deposits presented in this paper may provide clues for the interpretation of fine-grained sedimentary successions in ancient fluviodeltaic deposits.


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