Clastic wedge
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In geology, clastic wedge usually refers to a thick assemblage of sediments--often lens-shaped in profile--eroded and deposited landward of a mountain chain; they begin at the mountain front, thicken considerably landwards of it to a peak depth, and progressively thin with increasing distance inland. Perhaps the best examples of clastic wedges in the United States are the Catskill Delta, and the series of Jurassic and Cretaceous sediments deposited eastward of the Rocky Mountains.[1]
Not all clastic wedges are associated with mountains. They are also characteristic of passive continental margins such as the Gulf Coast; these are quiescent environments, where sediments have accumulated to great thickness over a long period of time.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ Stanley, Steven M. Earth System History. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1999. ISBN 0-7167-2882-6 pp. 243, 489
- ^ Stanley, p. 516
