Everything about Transgression Geology totally explained
A
transgression is a
geologic event during which
sea level rises relative to the land and the shoreline moves toward higher ground, resulting in flooding.
Transgressions can be caused either by the land sinking or the ocean basins filling with water (or decreasing in capacity).
During the
Cretaceous,
seafloor spreading created a relatively shallow
Atlantic basin at the expense of deeper Pacific basin. This reduced the world's ocean basin capacity and caused a rise in sea level worldwide. As a result of this sea level rise, the oceans transgressed completely across the central portion of
North America and created the
Western Interior Seaway from the
Gulf of Mexico to the
Arctic Ocean.
The opposite of transgression is
regression, in which the sea level falls relative to the land and exposes former sea bottom. During the
Pleistocene Ice Ages, so much water was removed from the oceans and stored on land as year-round
glaciers that the ocean regressed 120 meters, exposing the
Bering land bridge between
Alaska and
Asia.
Characteristic facies
The
sedimentary signs of transgressions and regressions are often easily identified, because of the unique conditions required to deposit each type of
sediment. For instance, coarse-grained
clastics like sand are usually deposited in nearshore, high-energy environments; fine-grained sediments however, such as
silt and
carbonate muds, are deposited farther offshore, in deep, low-energy waters.(Monroe and Wicander, 112)
Thus, a transgression reveals itself in the sedimentary column when there's a change from nearshore facies (like
sandstone) to offshore ones (like
marl), from the oldest to the youngest rocks. A regression will feature the opposite pattern, with offshore facies changing to nearshore ones.(Monroe and Wicander, 112-13) Regressions are less well-represented in the strata, as their upper layers are often marked by an eroded
unconformity.
These are both idealized scenarios; in practice identifying transgression or regressions can be more complicated. For instance, a regression may be indicated by a change from carbonates to shale only, or a transgression from sandstone to shale, and so on. Lateral changes in facies are also important; a well-marked transgression sequence in an area where an epeiric sea was deep may be only partial farther away, where the water was shallow. These are factors that should be considered when interpreting a given sedimentary column.
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