SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL EVOLUTION OF COASTAL DEPOSITIONAL SYSTEMS AND REGIONAL DEPOSITIONAL PROCESS REGIMES: CAMPANIAN WESTERN INTERIOR SEAWAY, USA

摘要

This paper provides a critical review and regional synthesis of Late Cretaceous shallow-marine deposits along part of the western margin of the Western Interior Seaway of North America, which contains the most extensively documented outcrop-based studies of siliciclastic coastal depositional systems in the world. The results of this synthesis are presented in the form of paleogeographic maps (covering present-day New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming, USA) for five timeslices in the Campanian. These maps are used to evaluate the spatial and temporal evolution of regional depositional process regimes along a large (> 1000 m) stretch of coastline. The evolution of regional depositional process regimes is linked to tectonic and paleoceanographic controls on the Western Interior Seaway, which enables the results of this synthesis to be applied to prediction of depositional process regimes in other, less intensively studied basins.