DEPOSITIONAL ENVIRONMENTS

Figure showing different depositional environments

There are various depositional environments which have been divided into two
main categories namely Marine Environments and Terrestrial Environments.

Terrestrial Environments:

These environments relate to the deposition that occurs

on the continents through either glaciers, water in the form of rivers, lakes, ponds,
deltas, beaches and even through wind. These environments are relatively high
energy environments and often form relatively coarser lithology.
Marine Environments:

These environments include the low energy shallow,

submarine and deep water marine environments. The lithology deposited here is
usually fine grained like limestone.

The list of environments and the lithology deposited in the specific environments
are given below:

Important
Depositional
Environment Transport Typical Sediment Types
Environments
Processes

Terrestrial Environments

gravity, moving ice, valleys, plains, glacial till, gravel, sand, silt,
Glacial
moving water streams, lakes and clay

Colluvial gravity steep-sided valleys coarse angular fragments

Fluvial moving water streams gravel, sand, silt, and OM*

deserts and coastal

Aeolian wind sand, silt
regions

Lacustrine moving water lakes sand, silt, clay, and OM*

Evaporite moving water lakes in arid regions salts, clay

Marine Environments

Deltaic moving water deltas sand, silt, clay, and OM*

waves, longshore beaches, spits, sand

Beach gravel, sand
currents bars

Tidal tidal currents tidal flats silt, clay

waves and tidal reefs and adjacent

Reefs carbonates
currents basins

carbonates (in tropical

Shallow water waves and tidal shelves and slopes,
climates); sand/silt/clay
marine currents lagoons
(elsewhere)
 carbonates (in tropical
Lagoonal little transportation lagoon bottom
climates)

underwater gravity continental slopes and

Submarine fan gravel, sand, mud
flows abyssal plains

Deep water deep-ocean abyssal clay, carbonate mud, silica

ocean currents
marine plains mud