Experimental Mudstone Sedimentology: An Attempt at Reverse Engineering of Natural Processes

实验泥岩沉积学：自然过程逆向工程的尝试（EAR-0308921）Juergen Schieber和John southd印第安纳大学和麻省理工学院摘要泥岩是在地球历史上非常丰富的细粒沉积物。它们的矿物质记录了古代的风化状态、过去的气候和海洋化学的变化。由于其细粒度的性质，它们也非常有效地密封和保存有机成分，如植物和动物化石。因此，泥岩包含了我们所能获得的关于地球历史记录的大部分信息。然而，尽管如此，我们对过去泥岩沉积过程的理解还很初级。因此，理解这些过程并在岩石记录中识别它们必须是我们试图从岩石记录中读出过去条件的一个重要方面，如气候、大气和海洋化学，以及生物上重要的化学元素（如碳、硫、磷）的再循环的有效性。pi将通过一系列水槽实验开始填补我们理解中的这一空白，在这些实验中，它们使泥浆基质在实验室流道中受到一系列影响。通过拟议的水槽设施，pi计划定量探索影响泥岩沉积的因素，以及各种参数组合产生的小尺度沉积特征。这些参数包括矿化度、粘土类型、流速、泥浆含水量、连续与间歇沉积物供应以及波浪作用。本研究收集的数据将为解释泥岩沉积的物理方面提供基线，也将使他们能够确定未来研究的优先领域。

EAR-0308921 Schieber, JuergenExperimental Mudstone Sedimentology: An Attempt at Reverse Engineering of Natural Processes (EAR-0308921)Juergen Schieber and John SouthardIndiana University and MITABSTRACTMudstones are fine-grained sediments that are very abundant throughout earth history. Their minerals record the state of ancient weathering, past climates, and changes in ocean chemistry. Because of their fine-grained nature they also are very effective to seal in and preserve organic components, such as plant and animal fossils. As such, mudstones contain the lion's share of information available to us on recorded earth history. Despite of that significance, however, our understanding of the processes that deposited the mudstones of the past is rudimentary. Thus, understanding these processes and identifying them in the rock record has to be an essential aspect of our attempts to read out of the rock record the conditions of the past, such as climate, atmosphere and ocean chemistry, and effectiveness of recycling of biologically important chemical elements (e.g. carbon, sulfur, phosphorous). PIs will begin to fill this gap in our understanding through a series of flume experiments where they subject mud substrates to a range of influences in a laboratory flow channel. With the proposed flume facility PIs plan to quantitatively explore the factors that influence mudstone deposition, and the small-scale sedimentary features that result from combinations of a variety of parameters. These parameters include for example salinity, clay type, flow velocity, water content of mud, continuous vs. episodic sediment supply, and wave action. The data collected in this study will provide a baseline for interpreting the physical aspects of mudstone deposition, and will also allow them to identify priority areas for future research.