Clastic wedge

Sedimentary (Wedge) build-up in Dinosaur Ridge, Colorado, USA.

In geology, a clastic wedge is a thick accumulation of sediments or sedimentary rocks eroded and deposited landward of a mountain chain or geological boundary. They begin at the mountain front, thicken considerably landwards of it to a peak depth, and progressively thin with increasing distance inland. As they are often lens-shaped in profile, the process by which these sedimentary wedges are shaped is due to the regressive and transgressive movement from bodies of water.[1] Some examples of clastic wedges in the United States are the Catskill Delta in Appalachia and the sequence of Jurassic and Cretaceous sediments deposited in the Cordilleran foreland basin in the Rocky Mountains.[2]

  1. ^ Zecchin, Massimo; Catuneanu, Octavian (2015-04-01). "High-resolution sequence stratigraphy of clastic shelves III: Applications to reservoir geology". Marine and Petroleum Geology. 62: 161–175. doi:10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2014.08.025. ISSN 0264-8172.
  2. ^ Stanley, Steven M. Earth System History. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1999. ISBN 0-7167-2882-6 pp. 243, 489