Sedimentology

(EGE 3083)

10.
AEOLIAN DESERT &
GLACIAL SYSTEMS

Dr Hafzan Eva Mansor

INTRODUCTION

Deserts cover broad areas of the world today, particularly

within the latitudinal belts of about 10-30 degrees north
and south of the equator, where dry, descending air
masses create prevailing wind systems that sweep toward
the equator.

Deserts also lie in the interiors of continents and in the

rain shadows of large mountain ranges where they are cut
off from moisture from the oceans.

Deserts are areas in which potential rates of evaporation

greatly exceed rates of precipitation. They cover about 20-
25% of the present land surface.
Depositional environments in arid regions: coarse material is
deposited on alluvial fans, sand accumulates to form aeolian dunes
and occasional rainfall feeds ephemeral lakes where mud and
evaporite minerals are deposited.
 AEOLIAN TRANSPORT

The term aeolian (or

eolian) is used to
describe the processes
of transport of fine
sediment up to sand
size by the wind, and
aeolian environments
are those in which the
deposits are made up
mainly of wind-blown
material.

The distribution of high- and

low-pressure belts at different latitudes
creates wind patterns that are deflected by the Coriolis force.
 TEXTURE OF AEOLIAN PARTICLES

When two grains collide in the air, one or both of the

grains may be damaged in the process.

The most vulnerable parts of a grain are angular edges,

which will tend to get chipped off, and with multiple
impacts the grains gradually become more rounded as
more of the edges are smoothed off.

Inspection using a hand lens reveals another feature,

the grain surfaces will have a dull, matt appearance that
under high magnification is a frosting of the rounded
surface.
COMPOSITION OF AEOLIAN DEPOSITS
The abrasive effect of grain impacts during aeolian transport also has an effect
on the grain types found in wind-blown deposits.

When a relatively hard mineral, such as quartz, collides with a less robust
mineral, for example mica, the latter will tend to suffer more damage.

A mixture of different grain types becomes reduced to a grain assemblage that

consists of very resistant minerals such as quartz and similarly robust lithic
fragments such as chert.

Other common minerals, for example feldspar, are likely to be less common in
aeolian sandstones, and weak grains such as mica are very rare.

Most modern and ancient wind-deposited sands are quartz arenites.

 AEOLIAN BEDFORMS
The processes of transport and deposition by wind produce bedforms that are in
some ways similar to subaqueous bedforms, but with some important
differences that can be used to help distinguish aeolian from subaqueous sands.

Three groups can be separated on the basis of their size:

- aeolian ripples,
- dunes
- draas.

Aeolian ripples, dunes and

draas are three distinct types
of aeolian bedform.
Characteristics of aeolian deposits

• lithologies – sand and silt only

• mineralogy – mainly quartz, with rare examples of carbonate or other grains
• texture – well- to very well-sorted silt to medium sand
• fossils – rare in desert dune deposits, occasional vertebrate bones
• bed geometry – sheets or lenses of sand
• sedimentary structures – large-scale dune cross bedding and parallel
stratification in sands
• palaeocurrents – dune orientations reconstructed from cross-bedding
indicate wind direction. colour – yellow to red due to iron hydroxides and
oxides
• facies associations – occur with alluvial fans, ephemeral river and lake facies
in deserts, also with beach deposits or glacial outwash facies
TERRESTRIAL ENVIRONMENT:GLACIAL
Current Extent of Glaciation -
about 10% of land surface
 Introduction

Glaciers are important agents of erosion of bedrock and

mechanisms of transport of detritus in mountain regions.

Deposition of this material on land produces characteristic

landforms and distinctive sediment character, but these
continental glacial deposits generally have a low
preservation potential in the long term and are rarely
incorporated into the stratigraphic record.

Glacial processes which bring sediment into the marine

environment generate deposits that have a much higher
chance of long-term preservation, and recognition of the
characteristics of these sediments can provide important
clues about past climates.
DISTRIBUTION OF GLACIAL ENVIRONMENTS

Ice accumulates in areas where the addition of snow

each year exceeds the losses due to melting, evaporation
or wind deflation.

The climate is clearly a controlling factor, as these

conditions can be maintained only in areas where there is
either a large amount of winter snow that is not matched
by summer thaw, or in places that are cold most of the
time, irrespective of the amount of precipitation.

There are areas of permanent ice at almost all latitudes,

including within the tropics, and there are two main
types of glacial terrains
- temperate (or mountain) glaciers
- polar ice caps.
Types of glaciers: Temperate or mountain glaciers
Form in areas of relatively high altitude where
precipitation in the winter is mainly in the form of snow.
These conditions can exist at any latitude if the
mountains are high enough.

Accumulating snow compacts and starts to form ice

especially in the upper parts of valleys, and a glacier
forms if the summer melt is insufficient to remove all of
the mass added each winter.

Once formed, the weight of snow accumulating in the

upper part of the glacier (the accumulation zone of the
glacier) causes it to move downslope, where it reaches
lower altitudes and higher temperatures.

The lower part of the glacier is the ablation zone where

the glacier melts during the summer
Temperate or mountain glaciers

Snowfall adds to the mass of a glacier in the accumulation zone and as the glacier advances
downslope it enters the ablation zone where mass is lost due to ice melting. Glacial advance or retreat
is governed by the balance between these two processes.
 Types of glaciers: Polar ice caps/glaciers
Polar glaciers occur at the north and south poles, which are
regions of low precipitation (Antarctica is the driest
continent): the addition to the glaciers from snow is quite
small each year, but the year-round low temperatures mean
that little melting occurs.

Permanent ice in the polar continental areas forms large ice

sheets and domed ice caps covering tens to hundreds of
thousands of square kilometers
 Transport & Deposition of Glacial Environment

Transport of sediments by ice is a kind of fluid-flow transport, although

ice flows very slowly as a high-viscosity, non-Newtonian pseudoplastic.

Glaciers can flow at rates as high as 80m per day during sporadic
surges; however, typical flow rates are on the order of centimeters per
day. Glaciers advance if the rate of accumulation of snow in the upper
reaches (head) of the glacier exeeds the rate of ablation (melting) of ice
in the lower reaches (snout).

The balance between accumulation and melting is illustrated in Figure

8.28. ice must flow internally from the head of the glacier to replace
that lost by melting at the snout. Flow of ice is laminar, and flow
velocity is greatest near the top and center of the glacier. Velocity
decreases toward the walls and floor, although not necessarily to zero.
Erosional glacial features

Cirques, U-shaped valleys and hanging valleys are evidence of past glaciation,
which, in the framework of geological time, are ephemeral, lasting only until
they are themselves eroded away.

Smaller scale evidence such as glacial striae produced by ice movement over
bedrock may be seen on exposed surfaces, including roche moutone´e.

Pieces of bedrock incorporated into a glacier by plucking may retain striae,

and contact between clasts within the ice also results in scratch marks on the
surfaces of sand and gravel transported and deposited by ice.

These clast surface features are important criteria for the recognition of pre-
Quaternary glacial deposits.
Transport by continental glaciers

Debris is incorporated into a moving ice mass by two

main mechanisms: supraglacial debris, which
accumulates on the surface of a glacier as a result of
detritus falling down the sides of the glacial valley,
and basal debris, which is entrained by processes of
abrasion and plucking from bedrock by moving ice.

Supraglacial debris is dominantly coarser-grained

material with a low proportion of fine-grained
sediment. Basal debris has a wider range of grain
sizes, including fine-grained rock flour produced by
abrasion processes.
Characteristics of glacially transported material

Glacial erosion processes result in a wide range

of sizes of detrital particles.

As the ice movement is a laminar flow there is no

opportunity for different parts of the ice body to
mix and hence no sorting of material carried by
the glacier will take place.

Glacially transported debris is therefore typically

very poorly sorted.
 CONTINENTAL GLACIAL DEPOSITION

Glacial landforms and glacial deposits in continental glaciated areas.

MARINE GLACIAL ENVIRONMENTS

At continental margins in polar areas, continental ice feeds floating ice sheets that eventually melt
releasing detritus to form a till sheet and calve to form icebergs, which may carry and deposit
dropstones.
Deposition by continental glaciers

The general term for all deposits directly deposited by ice is till if it is
unconsolidated or tillite if it is lithified.

The terms diamicton and diamictite are used to describe unlithified and lithified
deposits of poorly sorted material in an objective way, without necessarily implying
that the deposits are glacial in origin.

Till deposits result from the accumulation of debris above, below and in front of a glacier.
Deposition by continental glaciers

Tills can be divided into a number of different types depending on their origin.
Meltout tills are deposited by melting ice as accumulations of material at a glacier
front.

Lodgement tills are formed by the plastering of debris at the base of a moving
glacier, and the shearing process during the ice movement may result in a flow-
parallel clast orientation fabric. Collectively meltout and lodgement tills are
sometimes called basal tills.

Till deposits result from the accumulation of debris above, below and in front of a glacier.
 Characteristic of glaciers deposits

• lithologies – conglomerate, sandstone and mudstone

• mineralogy – variable, compositionally immature
• texture – extremely poorly sorted in till to poorly sorted in fluvio-glacial facies
• bed geometry – bedding absent to indistinct in many continental deposits,
glaciomarine deposits may be laminated
• sedimentary structures – usually none in tills, crossbedding in fluvio-glacial
facies
• palaeocurrents – orientation of clasts can indicate ice flow direction
• fossils – normally absent in continental deposits, may be present in
glaciomarine facies
• colour – variable, but deposits are not usually oxidised
• facies associations – may be associated with fluvial facies or with shallow-
marine deposits