The Upper Cretaceous Cerro Toro Formation, southern Chile, is characterised by thinbedded turbidites that envelope a series of coarse-grained, confined slope complex systems, interpreted as part of the Lago Sofia Member. This deep-water slope system overlies basin floor sheets of the Punta Barrosa Formation, and is overlain by the sand-filled slope channels of the Tres Pasos Formation. Particularly distinctive beds, known as TEDs (transitional event deposits), are up to 40 m thick, laterally extensive, have prominent fluted bases, and have a vertical fabric starting with (1) a thin, inversely-graded, clast-supported base; then (2) a normally-graded and clastsupported interval; (3) an increasingly sand and clay matrix-supported conglomerate, with (4) a progressive upwards increase in matrix and normally grading, both in the floating gravel clast and matrix grain sizes, towards the top; and (5) a co-genetic sandstone on top. In the Cerro Toro formation, these TEDs tend to occur as multiple beds in the initial phases of deposition of each channel complex system. The TEDs are highly aggradational, slightly more amalgamated in the channel-axis, and more layered towards the margins. The fabric of these spectacular event beds is described in some detail from measured sections, combined with petrographic analysis and high-resolution field mapping. The 4 km x 200 m channel systems are contained within topographically irregular bathymetric lows that formed sediment pathways, interpreted to be either the result of slope deformation, or contained by poorly preserved, tectonically disrupted or slumped external levee. Syn-sedimentary tectonism is interpreted to be responsible for sharp changes in the system's architecture from channels to ponds, marked by a sharp change in lithofacies from dominantly conglomerates to dominantly sandstones. A refined architectural analysis is proposed, focusing on the recurrent pattern of at least 5 cycles of conglomerate-filled channel systems – ponded sheet sandstones.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:731645 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Bozetti, Guilherme |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=235577 |
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