The accommodation concept in sequence stratigraphy: some dimensional problems and possible redefinition
✍ Scribed by Tetsuji Muto; Ron J Steel
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 489 KB
- Volume
- 130
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0037-0738
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
A debate is provoked here as to what is meant exactly by the term 'accommodation' and how well this concept, as it presently stands, serves the conceptual and quantitative framework of sequence stratigraphy. 'Accommodation', in terms of its original definition, contains some conceptual flaws. It represents a space that has three-dimensional extent associated with a certain availability of sediment and thus is not really independent of sedimentation. However, this space is fairly unspecifiable because of the inherent difficulty of distinguishing real accommodation from the space which is very unlikely to be filled by sediment (anti-accommodation). The accommodation concept cannot be extended to subaerial environments because the equilibrium profile of streams, which is sometimes used for this purpose, is difficult to recognize even if it existed. A possible redefinition of accommodation is suggested as: 'the thickness, measured at a specified site and time, of a space which becomes filled with sediments during a specified time interval'. This accommodation is not a space but the thickness of a space, not something potential but an objective result, not specifiable from the graded profile or geomorphic base level but from stratigraphic base level, and not separated from sedimentation but partly dependent from it. 'Potential accommodation' may be used to describe the maximum of possible accommodation (at a specified site and time), which can substantially coincide with the height of a water column at a given site and time.