Table 1: Sedimentary Features Associated with Erosion Surfaces
| Feature | Ease of Recognition |
| Silt Lags | in outcrop, careful examination reveals
thicker silt beds (>5mm) in hand specimen and on cut surfaces, beds of 1-2 mm thickness readily seen |
| Sand Lags | in outcrop, careful examination
typically reveals coarser beds, 5-20 mm thick in hand specimen and on cut surfaces, beds of 1-2 mm thickness readily seen |
| Bone Beds | typically a variant of sand silt lags,
with comparable ease of recognition larger bone fragments readily recognizable with hand lens on fresh surfaces |
| Pyritic Lags | in outcrop, thicker pyritic lags, 10 or
more mm thick, may be recognized via rusty stains or
crusts of secondary white and yellow hydrous ferric
sulfates in handspecimen, layers as thin as 1 mm are readily seen on fresh surfaces |
| Conodont Lags | may form a variant of sand/silt lags,
with comparable ease of recognition mostly forms almost pure layers of conodont material, 1-3 mm thick, that are best observed in handspecimen (bedding plane examination with hand lens) |
| Lingula Lags | in outcrop and hand specimen, easily
recognized only when shale is split along bedding planes in thin section, shell cross-sections easily identified, but may be missed when Lingula shells are sparse on surface |
| Low-Angle Truncations | typically not recognizable in outcrop best recognized on cut/polished surfaces and in oversize thin sections |
| Soft Sediment Deformation | deformation on the scale of tens of
cms (e.g. with associated ball and pilow
structures) can be recognized in outcrop small scale deformation (mms to cms) best recognized on cut surfaces and in thin section |
| Sharp-Based Shale Beds |
recognition easiest on cut and polished
surfaces and in thin section very difficult and tentative in outcrop |
© Jürgen Schieber, UTA Department of Geology
Last updated: January 27, 2000.