The Late Ordovician Pingliang Formation accumulated along the southern margin of the Ordos Basin in China. The convergence of the Yangtze Plate and Sino-Korean Plate led to a trench–arc–basin system during the Middle Ordovician, with a platform- and slope-dominated setting in the east where a graben complicated the overall simple paleogeographical picture, relatively parallel zones of a platform and a slope setting in the middle, and a change from platform to slope to deep marine to a trench setting in the west. This configuration resulted in various types of gravity flow deposits and contourites with different compositions and pathways. The present study focuses on the typical characteristics of contourites in the geological record and the relationships between contour currents and gravity flows. The Pingliang Formation contains eleven lithofacies grouped into five facies associations. These facies associations represent deep sea autochthonous deposits, several types of debrites, turbidites, and contourites, as well as turbidites within which the fine-grained top portion was reworked by a contour current. The various lithofacies are concentrated in different parts of the study area: micritic contourites and debrites are concentrated in the eastern part; debrites, and sandstone and siltstone turbidites are concentrated in the middle part; and calcarenitic turbidites, contourites, and reworked turbidites occur in the western part. The main contour current ran parallel to the contour lines from east to west. Although most of the contour current continually moved westward in the eastern part of the study area, a minor part split off and followed a semicircular pathway through the Fuping Graben; its velocity became reduced here so that micritic contourites were deposited. The velocity of the contour current was increased locally when it entered a confined trough in the western part of the study area. The relatively high energy of the contour current here resulted in calcarenitic contourites. The velocity of the contour current was low where it ran through an open environment, resulting in fine-grained, thin contourites in the middle part of the study area. Large turbidity currents and debris flows occurred here, and their high energy destroyed almost all earlier deposited contourites. This explains why traces of contour currents in the middle part of the study are very scarce, although the east–west-running contour current must have passed through this area.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
Research Article|
January 13, 2020
Cannibalism of contourites by gravity flows: explanation of the facies distribution of the Ordovician Pingliang Formation along the southern margin of the Ordos Basin, China
Hua Li;
Hua Li
a
School of Geosciences, Yangtze University, Wuhan 430100, Hubei, China.
Search for other works by this author on:
A.J. van Loon;
A.J. van Loon
b
College of Earth Science and Engineering, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266590, Shandong, China.
Search for other works by this author on:
Youbin He
a
School of Geosciences, Yangtze University, Wuhan 430100, Hubei, China.Corresponding author: Youbin He (email: heyb122@163.com).
Search for other works by this author on:
Hua Li
a
School of Geosciences, Yangtze University, Wuhan 430100, Hubei, China.
A.J. van Loon
b
College of Earth Science and Engineering, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266590, Shandong, China.Corresponding author: Youbin He (email: heyb122@163.com).
Publisher: Canadian Science Publishing
Received:
30 Aug 2018
Accepted:
23 Jul 2019
First Online:
14 Mar 2020
Online ISSN: 1480-3313
Print ISSN: 0008-4077
Published by NRC Research Press
Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences (2020) 57 (3): 331–347.
Article history
Received:
30 Aug 2018
Accepted:
23 Jul 2019
First Online:
14 Mar 2020
Citation
Hua Li, A.J. van Loon, Youbin He; Cannibalism of contourites by gravity flows: explanation of the facies distribution of the Ordovician Pingliang Formation along the southern margin of the Ordos Basin, China. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 2020;; 57 (3): 331–347. doi: https://doi.org/10.1139/cjes-2018-0225
Download citation file:
You could not be signed in. Please check your email address / username and password and try again.
Email alerts
Index Terms/Descriptors
- Asia
- China
- clastic rocks
- contourite
- Far East
- Gansu China
- grain size
- gravity flows
- lithofacies
- lithostratigraphy
- Ordos Basin
- Ordovician
- paleocurrents
- paleogeography
- Paleozoic
- petrography
- sedimentary rocks
- Shaanxi China
- Upper Ordovician
- Pingliang Formation
- Fuping China
- Tongchuan China
- Pingliang China
- Longxian China
- Qishan China
- Tangwangling China
- Donglinghou China
Latitude & Longitude
Citing articles via
Related Articles
Related Book Content
Rancho Vallecitos Formation, Baja California Norte, Mexico
The Prebatholithic Stratigraphy of Peninsular California
High Resolution Sequence Stratigraphy and Sedimentology of the Prolific Devonian Jauf Formation Gas Reservoir: Transgressive Tidal Estuarine and Regressive Wave-Dominated Shoreface Deposits, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Siliciclastic Reservoirs of the Arabian Plate
Deciphering multiple controls on reservoir quality and inhibition of quartz cement in a complex reservoir: Ordovician glacial sandstones, Illizi Basin, Algeria
Reservoir Quality of Clastic and Carbonate Rocks: Analysis, Modelling and Prediction
Braided stream deposition and provenance of the Upper Cretaceous-Paleocene(?) Canaan Peak Formation, Sevier foreland basin, southwestern Utah
Stratigraphy, depositional environments; and sedimentary tectonics of the western margin, Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway