Evolution of fluvial meander-belt deposits and implications for the completeness of the stratigraphic record

The fragmentary nature of the stratigraphic record is particularly evident with respect to fluvial deposits, which are characterized by a hierarchy of depositional units deposited over a wide range of time scales and sedimentation rates. We quantified stratigraphic completeness in meander-belt deposits through deducing the total area of bar sedimentation versus what is ultimately preserved in the depositional record, using area as a surrogate metric for sediment volume. Data sets were evaluated for a numerical model, the modern Mississippi River valley, and the Cretaceous McMurray Formation. In each data set, the evolutionary history of a series of meander-belt elements was discerned. Migrated area between successive reconstructed paleochannel positions was measured, representing: total area of net bar migration (MA), the area of bar preserved (PA), and percent of bar preserved (PA/MA), at the accretion package, bar, and meander-belt scale. Results of our analysis show that the average preservation percent ranges from 27.3% to 67.8% for an accretion package, 35.0% to 85.1% for a bar, and 38.2% to 67.6% for a meander belt. The processes that lead to a decrease in preservation include intra-meander-bend erosion (due to downstream translation or bar rotation), and increasing meander-bend sinuosity and eventual cutoff (neck and chute), as well as inter-meander-bend erosion due to avulsion and subsequent migration of the meandering channel. The results of this study document a decrease in preservation over time that follows a natural logarithmic function of decay; we have termed this the survivability curve. The results presented here document a systematic, monotonic decrease in preservation over time, which is consistent regardless of the spatial or temporal scale and agrees with probabilities of preservation at long time scales proposed by previous workers. A comparison between data sets allows for an estimation of the time span represented by meander-belt deposits in the deep time record.