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Depositional Environments of Plant Bearing Sediments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2017

Scott L. Wing
Scott L. Wing*
Affiliation:
Department of Paleobiology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560
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Extract

Plants can become incorporated into the sediments of virtually any environment, from the oozes of abyssal plains to the silts and sands of delta fronts to brecciated mudflows of volcanic origin. However there is a much narrower range of sedimentary environments in which identifiable plant remains are found in abundance. Generally speaking these are the very shallow or subaerial portions of deltas and estuaries, the channels and floodplains of fluvial systems, lakes of all sizes, ash-falls, and mass-flow deposits such as mudflows. For the purposes of this paper peat swamps are considered as unusual subtypes of deltaic and fluvial environments in which clastic input is low relative to organic accumulation.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Paleontological Society Special Publications , Volume 3: Methods and Applications of Plant Paleoecology , 1988 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 Paleontological Society 

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References

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