Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T12:04:23.796Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Basin history deduced from subtle changes in fluvial style: a study of distal alluvium from the Devonian of southwest Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

John R. Graham ,
Andrea James  and
Kenneth J. Russell
John R. Graham
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Andrea James
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Kenneth J. Russell
Affiliation:
Lomond Associates, De Quincey House, 48 West Regent Street, Glasgow, Scotland, U.K.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Two detailed sections through 4 km of distal alluvium of the Upper Devonian Old Red Sandstone in the Munster Basin, southern Ireland, display a limited number of lithofacies. There is little ordering of these lithofacies on a small scale but changes in the proportions of lithofacies through time define a sequence of stages of basin evolution. The depositional environments changed progressively from sheetflood dominant, via mobile ephemeral channels and floodplains to a more fixed channel–overbank system and eventually to a coastal plain. On the basis of the sedimentary record a progressive reduction in subsidence rate with time is deduced as the main control on the evolution of the basin fill. This deduction is consistent with predictions from previously applied extensional basin models, but is insufficiently refined at present to distinguish between the different models.

Keywords

Old Red Sandstonesheetfloodsephemeral channelsMunster Basinsubsidence rates.
Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 83 , Issue 4 , 1992 , pp. 655 - 667
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, J. R. L. 1960. Cornstone. GEOL MAG 97, 43–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, J. R. L. 1968. Current ripples, their relations to patterns of water and sediment motion. Elsevier.Google Scholar
Allen, J. R. L. 1986. Pedogenic calcretes in the ORS facies (Late Silurian-Early Carboniferous) of the Anglo-Welsh area, Southern Britain. In Wright, V. P. (Ed.) Palaeosols: their recognition and interpretation, 58–96. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Allen, J. R. L. & Williams, B. P. J. 1979. Interfluvial drainage on Siluro-Devonian alluvial plains in Wales and the Welsh Borders. J GEOL SOC LONDON 136, 361–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beer, J. A. & Jordan, T. E. 1989. The effects of Neogene thrusting on deposition in the Bermejo Basin, Argentina. J SEDIMENT PETROL 59, 330–45.Google Scholar
Blair, T. C. & Bilodeau, W. L. 1988. Development of tectonic cyclothems in rifts, pull-apart, and foreland basins: sedimentary responses to episodic tectonism. GEOLOGY 16, 517–20.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Capewell, J. G. 1957. The stratigraphy and structure of the country around Sneem, Co. Kerry. PROC ROY IRISH ACAD 58B, 141–67.Google Scholar
Capewell, J. G. 1975. The Old Red Sandstone Group of Iveragh, Co. Kerry. PROC ROY IRISH ACAD 75B, 155–71.Google Scholar
Carruthers, R. A. 1987. Aeolian sedimentation from the Galtymore Formation (Devonian), Ireland. In Frostick, L. & Reid, I. (Eds) Desert sediments; ancient and modern. GEOL SOC SPEC PUB 35, 251–68.Google Scholar
Clayton, G. & Graham, J. R. 1974. Miospore assemblages from the Devonian Sherkin Formation of south-west Country Cork, Republic of Ireland. POLLEN ET SPORES 16, 565–88.Google Scholar
Clayton, G., Graham, J. R., Higgs, K., Holland, C. H. & Naylor, D. 1980. Devonian rocks in Ireland: a review. J EARTH SCI, ROY DUBLIN SOC 2, 161–83.Google Scholar
Clayton, G., Graham, J. R., Higgs, K., Sevastopulo, G. D. & Welsh, A. 1986. Late Devonian and early Carboniferous palaeogeography of southern Ireland and southwest Britain. ANN SOC GEOL BELGIQUE 109, 103–11.Google Scholar
Coe, K. & Selwood, E. B. 1968. The Upper Palaeozoic stratigraphy of West Cork and parts of South Kerry. PROC ROY IRISH ACAD 66B, 113–31.Google Scholar
Cotter, E. & Graham, J. R. 1991. Coastal plain sedimentation in the late Devonian of southern Ireland, hummocky cross stratification in fluvial deposits? SED GEOL 72, 201–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardiner, P. R. R. & Horne, R. R. 1972. The Devonian and Lower Carboniferous clastic correlatives of Southern Ireland. BULL GEOL SURV IRELAND 1, 335–66.Google Scholar
Gile, L. M., Peterson, F. F. & Grossman, R. B. 1966. Morphology and genetic sequences of carbonate accumulation in desert soils. SOIL SCI 101, 347–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goudie, A. S. 1983. Calerete. In Goudie, A. S. & Pye, K. (Eds) Chemical sediments and geomorphology, 93–131. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Graham, J. R. 1975. Deposits of a near-coastal fluvial plain-the Toe Head Formation (Upper Devonian) of southwest County Cork, Eire. SED GEOL 14, 45–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, J. R. 1983. Analysis of the Upper Devonian Munster Basin, an example of a fluvial distributary system. In Collinson, J. D. & Lewin, J. (Eds) Modern and ancient fluvial systems. SPEC PUBL INTER ASSOC SEDIMENTOL 6, 473–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, J. R. & Clayton, G. 1988. Devonian rocks in Ireland and their relation to adjacent regions. In McMillan, N. J., Embry, , & Glass, D. J. (Eds) Devonian of the World. CAN SOC PETROL GEOL MEM 14, Vol. 1, 325–40.Google Scholar
Harland, W. B., Cox, A. V., Llewelyn, P. G., Pickton, C. A. G., Smith, A. G. & Walters, R. 1982. A geological time scale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Harms, J. C., Southard, J. B. & Walker, R. G. 1982. Structures and sequences in clastic rocks. SOC ECON PALAEONTOL MINERAL SHORT COURSE NOTES 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Higgs, K. & Russell, K. J. 1981. Upper Devonian microfloras from southeast Iveragh, County Kerry, Ireland. GEOL SURV IRELAND BULL 3, 17–50.Google Scholar
Higgs, K., Clayton, G. & Keegan, J. B. 1988. Stratigraphie and systematic palynology of the Tournaisian rocks of Ireland. GEOL SURV IRELAND SPEC PAP 7.Google Scholar
Husain, S. M. 1957. The geology of the Kenmare Syncline, Co. Kerry, Ireland. Ph.D. thesis, University of London.Google Scholar
James, A. 1989. A stratigraphie and facies analysis of Devonian continental elastics, Beara Peninsula, south-west County Cork. Ph.D. thesis, University of Dublin.Google Scholar
Leeder, M. R. 1975. Pedogenic carbonates and flood sediment accretion rates: a quantitative model for alluvial arid-zone lithofacies. GEOL MAG 112, 257–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacCarthy, I. A. J. 1990. Alluvial sedimentation patterns in the Munster Basin, Ireland. SEDIMENTOL 37, 685–712.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naylor, D. & Jones, P. C. 1967. Sedimentation and tectonic setting of the ORS of SW Ireland. In Oswald, D. H. (Ed.) International symposium on the Devonian system, Calgary 2, 1089–99. Calgary: Alberta Society of Petroleum Geologists.Google Scholar
Naylor, D. & Sevastopulo, G. D. 1979. The Hercynian ‘Front’ in Ireland. KRYSTALLINIKUM 14, 77–90.Google Scholar
Price, C. A. 1989. Some thoughts on the subsidence of the Munster Basin, southern Ireland. In Arthurton, R. S., Gutteridge, P. & Nolan, S. C. (Eds) The role of tectonics in Devonian and Carboniferous sedimentation in the British Isles. YORKSHIRE GEOL SOC OCC PUBL 6, 111–21.Google Scholar
Price, C. A. & Todd, S. P. 1988. A model for the development of the Irish Variscides. J GEOL SOC LONDON 145, 935–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, K. J. 1978. Vertebrate fossils from the Iveragh Peninsula and the age of the Old Red Sandstone. J EARTH SCI, ROY DUBLIN SOC 1, 151–62.Google Scholar
Russell, K. J. 1984. The sedimentology and palaeogeography of some Devonian sedimentary rocks in southwest Ireland. Ph.D. thesis, Council for National Academic Awards.Google Scholar
Sanderson, D. J. 1984. Structural variations across the northern margin of the Variscides in N.W. Europe. In Hutton, D. H. W. & Sanderson, D. J. (Eds) Variscan tectonics of the North Atlantic region. SPEC PUBL GEOL SOC LONDON 14, 149–65.Google Scholar
Schumm, S. A. 1977. The fluvial system. Chichester: Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Smith, R. M. H. 1980. The lithology, sedimentology and taphonomy of flood-plain deposits of the Lower Beaufort (Adelaide Subgroup) strata near Beaufort West. TRANS GEOL SOC SOUTH AFRICA 83, 393–9.Google Scholar
Stear, W. O. 1983. Morphological characteristics of ephemeral stream channel and overbank splay sandstone bodies in the Permian Lower Beaufort Group, Karoo Basin, South Africa. In Collinson, J. D. & Lewin, J. (Eds) Modern and ancient fluvial systems. SPEC PUBL INTER ASS SEDIMENTOL 6, 405–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steel, R. J. 1974. Cornstone (fossil caliche): its origin, stratigraphie and sedimentological importance in the New Red Sandstone, western Scotland. J GEOLOGY 82, 351–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Todd, S. P. 1989. Role of the Dingle Bay lineament in the evolution of the Old Red Sandstone of southwest Ireland. In Arthurton, R. S., Gutteridge, P. & Nolan, S. C. (Eds) The role of tectonics in Devonian and Carboniferous sedimentation in the British Isles. YORKSHIRE GEOL SOC OCC PUB 6, 35–54.Google Scholar
Walsh, P. T. 1968. The Old Red Sandstone west of Killarney, Co. Kerry, Ireland. PROC ROY IRISH ACADEMY 66B, 9–26.Google Scholar
Williams, E. A., Bamford, M. L. F., Cooper, M. A., Edwards, H. E., Ford, M., Grant, C. G., MacCarthy, I. A. J., McAfee, A. M. & O'Sullivan, M. J. 1989. Tectonic controls and sedimentary response in the Devonian-Carboniferous Munster Basin, south-west Ireland. In Arthurton, R. S., Gutteridge, P. & Nolan, S. C. (Eds) The role of tectonics in Devonian and Carboniferous sedimentation in the British Isles. YORKSHIRE GEOL SOC OCC PUBL 6, 123–41.Google Scholar
Witzke, B. J. & Heckel, P. H. 1988. Palaeoclimatic indicators and inferred Devonian palaeolatitudes of Euramerica. In McMillan, N. J., Embry, A. F. & Glass, D. J. (Eds) Devonian of the World. CAN SOC PETROL GEOL MEM 14, Vol. 1, 49–63.Google Scholar