Tidal deposits in time and space

月球和太阳对世界海洋的引力作用产生了潮汐。即使在潮差较小的地区，与水位涨落相关的水流运动对泥沙的搬运和沉积也起着重要作用。潮汐主导的沉积发生在世界上大约三分之一的海岸线上，在潮汐差大和/或波浪能量低的地区。然而，即使在波浪占主导地位的情况下，潮流也支配着堰洲岛后面水道网的沉积，从海岸通过河流-海洋过渡带向内陆延伸很长一段距离。这里提出的工作旨在提供对两种特殊潮汐亚环境的更好理解：1)潮汐-河流过渡区可能长达数十至100公里；2)潮控三角洲的河口坝和三角洲前缘区域。拟议的研究将现代潮汐水道系统的研究与可比较的古代例子的露头研究结合起来。这些研究结果也将作为实验工作的基础，通过河流-海洋的过渡，探索控制潮汐曲流平面形状的因素作为位置的函数。目前还在寻求工业支助，以进行若干补充这里所提议的工作的额外项目。这项研究的目的是提高我们对这两个亚环境中沉积物动力学的认识，并制定标准，使潮汐沉积能够比过去更精确地解释。该研究将应用于现代海岸系统的管理，但主要应用于石油工业，它将提高预测储层单元和泥岩层的三维几何形状的能力，泥岩层是石油和天然气流动的挡板和屏障。这将直接应用于开发麦克默里油砂地下部分的石油储量。

The gravitational attraction of the Moon and Sun on the world ocean creates tides. Even in areas with a small tidal range, the water motions associated with the tidal rise and fall of water level play an important role in sediment transportation and deposition. Tide-dominated sedimentation occurs along about one third of the world's marine coastline, in areas with a large tidal range and/or where wave energy is low. Even in wave-dominated situations, however, tidal currents dominate sedimentation in channel networks behind barrier islands, extending long distances inland from the coast through a fluvial-marine transition zone. The work proposed here is directed toward providing an improved understanding of two particular tidal sub-environments: 1) the tidal-fluvial transition zone that can be 10s to 100s of kilometres long; and 2) the mouth-bar and delta-front region of tide-dominated deltas. The proposed research integrates studies in modern tidal-channel systems with outcrop studies of comparable ancient examples. The results of these studies will also be used as a basis for experimental work that explores the factors that control the shape in plan of tidal meanders as a function of location through the fluvial-marine transition. Industrial support is also being sought to undertake several additional projects that would complement the work proposed here. The objectives of the research are to improve our knowledge of sediment dynamics in these two sub-environments, and to develop criteria by which tidal deposits can be interpreted more precisely than has been the case in the past. The research will have application the management of modern coastal systems, but the primary application is in the petroleum industry where it will improve the ability to predict the three-dimensional geometry of reservoir units and the mudstone layers that act as baffles and barriers to the flow of oil and natural gas. There will be direct application to the development of the oil reserves hosted in the subsurface portion of the McMurray Oil Sands.