Slope failure on a Cambrian carbonate platform, mass-flow transitions and resulting complex deposit

Authors

  • Zhaopeng Wang Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Depositional Mineralization & Sedimentary Minerals, Shandong University of Science and Technology, No. 579 Qianwangang Road, Qingdao, Shandong 266590, China
  • Jiaye Liu Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Depositional Mineralization & Sedimentary Minerals, Shandong University of Science and Technology, No. 579 Qianwangang Road, Qingdao, Shandong 266590, China
  • Antonius Johannes van Loon College of Earth Science and Engineering, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266590, Shandong, China http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8906-1728
  • Decheng Zhu Key Laboratory of Gold Mineralization Processes and Resources Utilization, Ministry of Land and Resources of the People’s Republic of China, No. 52 Lishan Road, Jinan 250013, China Key Laboratory of Geological Mineralization Processes of Metals and Resource Utilization in Shandong Province, No. 52 Lishan Road, Jinan 250013, China
  • Peng Qin
  • Zuozhen Han Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Depositional Mineralization & Sedimentary Minerals, Shandong University of Science and Technology, No. 579 Qianwangang Road, Qingdao, Shandong 266590, China Laboratory for Marine Mineral Resources, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, No. 1 Wenhai Road, Qingdao 266237, China

Keywords:

Gushan Formation, Middle Cambrian, epeiric sea, carbonate platform, mass-flow transitions

Abstract

The quiet environment of the carbonate platform in the epeiric sea that existed during the Cambrian between present-day China and Korea was occasionally affected by processes that have hitherto not been described from such a setting. A conglomerate was found in the Middle Cambrian Gushan Formation near Chengouwan (Shandong Province, E China), eroded into the underlying sediments. The conglomerate is explained as a deposit consisting of material that was eroded up-slope when slope-failure took place, resulting in a slump that passed into a high-density debris flow with erosive power that passed, in turn, again into a slump. The slump came to rest when it lost its momentum on a less inclined part of the basin slope. Immediately after deposition, fluidization occurred in the lower part of the slump deposit, as proven by a funnel-shaped water-escape structure and a lateral injection of some metres long of brecciated material.

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Published

2020-04-28

Issue

Vol. 64 No. 1 (2020)

Section

Articles

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