Variations in water discharge at different temporal scales in a mud-prone alluvial succession: The Paleocene-Eocene of the Tremp-Graus Basin, Spain

Abstract

The late Paleocene to earliest Eocene sedimentary record in the eastern Tremp-Graus Basin (southern Pyrenees, Spain) consists of a mud-prone fluvial succession informally known as ‘Upper Red Garumnian’, which is dominantly composed of non-channelized deposits interspersed with fluvial channel bodies. The succession records evidence of variations in water discharge at multiple temporal scales. One-hundred-and-eighty sand-prone and conglomeratic bodies present within otherwise fine-grained deposits have been examined by facies and architectural-element analyses. These have been assigned to four distinctive types: (i) simple and (ii) compound channelized deposits, (iii) multilateral and multistorey elements, and (iv) sediment gravity-flow deposits. Simple and compound channel bodies represent deposits of channelized high-energy flows associated respectively with single floods or multiple events occurring in the same channel belt. Multilateral and multistorey elements are associated with sedimentation in longer-lived channel belts. An increase in the occurrence of these latter elements through the stratigraphy can be related to changes in tectonic and/or climatic drivers, heralding a change in facies architecture that signifies a shift to perennial discharge conditions and incised-valley backfilling. This is itself followed by a marked change in architectural style in a part of stratigraphy recording the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when variations in precipitation regime and/or intrabasinal characteristics (e.g., vegetation) related to this event favoured the lateral migration of channels, causing the development of laterally extensive coarse-grained bodies. Floodplain sediments comprise (i) heterolithic deposits accumulated in the vicinities of the fluvial channels where riparian ecosystems were developed, and (ii) overbank mudstones with variable degree of pedogenesis, especially associated with wetting and drying cycles in areas of the floodplain located distally away from fluvial channels. This succession records the importance of water-discharge variations in the evolution of alluvial systems: it displays facies arrangements recording the effects of highly variable discharge in ephemeral to perennial channels, as well as variations in stratigraphic architecture testifying to longer-term hydrological changes in the late Paleocene and earliest Eocene.