A model for marine shelf storm deposition in the Lower Cambrian Fucoid Beds of northwest Scotland

Abstract

AbstractThe Lower Cambrian Fucoid Beds of northwest Scotland are a 20 m thick mixed clastic-carbonate sequence of thinly bedded storm beds deposited on the western margin of the Iapetus Ocean. Proximal facies display plane beds, current ripple laminations and wave ripple laminations and were deposited under the influence of combined steady andoscillatory currents. The steady component of flow appears to have expanded in an offshore direction and weakened during the final stages of storm deposition with respect to the oscillatory component, producing less asymmetrical ripples with less evidence of a preferred migration direction. Distal facies are represented by thin ‘graded rhythmites’. The palaeocurrent data suggest a wide spread of sediment transport directions, but with a north to northeasterly mode which may reflect a geostrophic component of flow. Following storms these beds were burrowed and echinoderms colonized the sea floor, although the limited extent of these processes and the presence of abundant collophane suggests that the fairweather Fucoid Beds shelf was generally quiescent and possibly dysaerobic.