Earth History
Overriding conclusions of all my research:
- earth history shows the record of natural rhythms, punctuated by major events.
- The longer-term rhythms are controlled by plate tectonics and astronomical parameters like the Milankovitch cycles.
- Major, often catastrophic, and partly even cataclysmic events are abundant in most depositional records.
- They include several time scales: from more frequent severe storm events, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, volcanic erutions and more rare meteorite impacts.
In my doctoral thesis I could show, that severe storms play a major role in forming stratification in sedimentary rocks of shallow-marine settings.
Single storm beds (tempestites) clearly record episodic and sudden erosion and deposition on the sea floor
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The bedding of shallow-marine sediments is largely due to severe storm events
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