Nicholas Christie-Blick

Sedimentary Geology and Tectonics

Nicholas Christie-Blick Homepage

Research

Physical Stratigraphy

Among the more intriguing general issues in sedimentary geology is the manner in which sediments accumulate layer by layer, and how such layering arises. In contrast to what is generally assumed in classical stratigraphy, sediments and sedimentary rocks are pervaded at all scales by discontinuities. These discontinuities are typically arranged into complex patterns, at each scale terminating or merging with discontinuities at a larger scale. They provide a means for telling time at exceedingly high resolution over distances of up to hundreds of kilometres, along with clues to the tectonic, eustatic, climatic and other phenomena that are ultimately responsible for their development.

The standard paradigm for the past 30 years or so has been that sedimentary cyclicity and associated stratal geometry in marine basins are due primarily to sea-level change. This view gains support from a comparison of very detailed stratigraphy at passive continental margins and deep-sea oxygen isotopic records for the past 40 million years, a span in which continental ice sheets were present at or near one or both poles. However, it seems unlikely that eustasy dominated the stratigraphic record during the 80% or so of Earth history in which there was little or no continental ice cover. Evidence from stratigraphic and structural studies in tectonically active basins such as the Cretaceous foreland of western North America and the Gulf of Suez suggests that a range of tectonic mechanisms play a much more important role than previously assumed in the origin of stratigraphic discontinuities. Sorting out those mechanisms represents an important emerging research direction.

For the class of discontinuities related directly to sea-level change (at least some of the regional unconformities termed sequence boundaries), it has long been assumed that basinward shifts in facies and associated subaerial erosion arise abruptly, and coincide with the onset of "relative" sea-level fall at some critical location such as the continental shelf edge or the break in slope associated with many terrigenous shorelines. Emerging evidence from numerous settings now strongly suggests that sequence boundaries evolve gradually as a result of bypassing during progradation, even during times such as the Pleistocene when amplitudes and rates of eustatic change were large. So-called forced regression may be much less important than generally thought in the development of offlap. In the case of the New Jersey Oligocene, the only pre-Pleistocene example in which eustasy has been adequately quantified at a resolution of < 1 m.y., sequence boundaries correspond not with falling sea level but with the onset of eustatic rise. "Highstand" sedimentation continued to the low stand of sea level in a series of sequences owing to the efficient transport of sediment across a shallow wave-dominated shelf and to the failure of point sources to develop. The manner in which sedimentation responds to rising and falling sea level as a function of time can now be tackled quantitatively at very high resolution, and that represents another current research direction.

Recent Publications

Austin, J.A., Jr., Christie-Blick, N., Malone, M.J., et al., 1998. Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program, Initial Reports, v. 174A, Continuing the New Jersey Mid-Atlantic Sea-Level Transect: College Station, Texas, Ocean Drilling Program, 324 p.

Berggren, W.A., Christie-Blick, N., Aubry, M.-P., Carter, R.M., Hallam, A., Miller, K.G., Owen, D.E., Van Couvering, J.A., and Watkins, J.S., 2001. A proposed bipartite sequence stratigraphic nomenclature: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Hedberg Research Conference (Sequence Stratigraphic and Allostratigraphic Principles and Concepts), Dallas, Texas, Program and Abstracts Volume, p. 16-17.

Christie-Blick, N., 1991. Onlap, offlap, and the origin of unconformity-bounded depositional sequences: Marine Geology, v. 97, p. 35-56.

Christie-Blick, N., 1994. High-resolution sequence stratigraphy of the Wonoka canyons (terminal Proterozoic, South Australia): An unusual example of sequence development associated with overall transgression: Second High-Resolution Sequence Stratigraphy Conference, Tremp, Spain, Abstracts, p. 33-40.

Christie-Blick, N., 1995. Forced logic: Sequence-boundary development in ramp and shelf settings: Conference on Sedimentary Responses to Forced Regression: Recognition, Interpretation and Reservoir Potential: Geological Society of London, British Sedimentological Research Group, Abstracts, p. 9-11.

Christie-Blick, N., 1997. Neoproterozoic sedimentation and tectonics in west-central Utah, in Link, P.K., and Kowallis, B.J., eds., Proterozoic to Recent Stratigraphy, Tectonics and Volcanology, Utah, Nevada, Southern Idaho and Central Mexico: Brigham Young University Geology Studies, v. 42, Part I, p. 1-30.

Christie-Blick, N., 2001. A personal perspective on sequence stratigraphic nomenclature: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Hedberg Research Conference (Sequence Stratigraphic and Allostratigraphic Principles and Concepts), Dallas, Texas, Program and Abstracts Volume, p. 20-21.

Christie-Blick, N., 2001. Stratigraphy, in Encyclopedia of Science and Technology: New York, McGraw-Hill, 9th edition, in press (on-line version). [A revised and extended version of a 1992 article.]

Christie-Blick, N., and Austin, J.A., Jr., 2002. Synopsis of Leg 174A postcruise science, in Christie-Blick, N., Austin, J.A., Jr., and Malone, M.J., eds., Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program, Scientific Results, v. 174A, p. 1-13. http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/174A_SR/synopsis/synopsis.htm

Christie-Blick, N., and Driscoll, N.W., 1995. Sequence stratigraphy: Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, v. 23, p. 451-478.

Christie-Blick, N., Dyson, I.A., and von der Borch, C.C., 1995. Sequence stratigraphy and the interpretation of Neoproterozoic earth history, in Knoll, A.H., and Walter, M., eds., Neoproterozoic Stratigraphy and Earth History: Precambrian Research, v. 73 (special volume), p. 3-26.

Christie-Blick, N., Mountain, G.S., Ghosh, A., McHugh, C.M.G., Pekar, S.F., and Schock, S.G., 2002. New insights on late Pleistocene sedimentation at the New Jersey margin based on Chirp sonar profiles and vibracores: EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, v. 83, No. 47, Abstract OS71C-0298.

Driscoll, N.W., Hogg, J.R., Christie-Blick, N., and Karner, G.D., 1995. Extensional tectonics in the Jeanne d'Arc Basin, offshore Newfoundland: implications for the timing of break-up between Grand Banks and Iberia, in Scrutton, R.A., Stoker, M.S., Shimmield, G.B., and Tudhope, A.W., eds., The Tectonics, Sedimentation and Palaeoceanography of the North Atlantic Region: Geological Society of London Special Publication No. 90, p. 1-28.

Ghosh, A., Christie-Blick, N., Mountain, G.S., McHugh, C.M.G., and Pekar, S.F., 2003. Late Pleistocene sequence geometry beneath the Long Island shelf from chirp sonar data: Geology of Long Island and Metropolitan New York, State University of New York, Stony Brook, Abstracts.

Holmes, A.E., and Christie-Blick, N., 1993. Origin of sedimentary cycles in mixed carbonate-siliciclastic systems: An example from the Canning basin, Western Australia, in Loucks, R.G., and Sarg, J.F., eds., Carbonate Sequence Stratigraphy. Recent Developments and Applications: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Memoir 57, p. 181-212.

Holmes, A.E., and Christie-Blick, N., 1994. Evaluating the applicability of sequence stratigraphic models for mixed systems: constraints from the Canning basin, Western Australia, in Johnson, S.D., ed., High Resolution Sequence Stratigraphy: Innovations and Applications: Liverpool, University of Liverpool, UK, Abstract Volume, p. 43-47.

Jiang Ganqing, Christie-Blick, N., Kaufman, A.J., Banerjee, D.M., and Rai, V., 2002. Sequence stratigraphy of the Neoproterozoic Infra Krol Formation and Krol Group, Lesser Himalaya, India: Journal of Sedimentary Research, v. 72, p. 525-543.

Jiang Ganqing, Christie-Blick, N., Kaufman, A.J., Banerjee, D.M., and Rai, V., 2003. Carbonate platform growth and cyclicity at a terminal Proterozoic passive margin, Infra Krol Formation and Krol Group, Lesser Himalaya, India: Sedimentology, v. 50, p. 1-32.

Levy, M., Christie-Blick, N., and Link, P.K., 1994. Neoproterozoic incised valleys of the eastern Great Basin, Utah and Idaho: Fluvial response to changes in depositional base level, in Dalrymple, R.W., Boyd, R., and Zaitlin, B.A., eds., Incised Valley Systems: Origin and Sedimentary Sequences: SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology) Special Publication No. 51, p. 369-382.

McHugh, C.M.G., Pekar, S.F., Christie-Blick, N., Ryan, W.B.F., Carbotte, S., and Bell, R., 2004. Spatial variations in a condensed interval between estuarine and open-marine settings: Holocene Hudson River estuary and adjacent continental shelf: Geology, v. 32, p. 169-172.

Metzger, J.M, Flemings, P.B., Christie-Blick, N., Mountain, G.S., Austin, J.A., Jr., and Hesselbo, S.P., 2000. Late Miocene to Pleistocene sequences at the New Jersey outer continental shelf (ODP Leg 174A, Sites 1071 and 1072): Sedimentary Geology, v. 134, p. 149-180.

Miller, K.G., Mountain, G.S., Browning, J.V., Kominz, M., Sugarman, P.J., Christie-Blick, N., Katz, M.E. and Wright, J.E., 1998. Cenozoic global sea level, sequences, and the New Jersey Transect: Results from coastal plain and continental slope drilling: Reviews of Geophysics, v. 36, p. 569-601.

Pekar, S.F., Christie-Blick, N., Kominz, M.A., and Miller, K.G., 2001. Evaluating the stratigraphic response to eustasy from Oligocene strata in New Jersey: Geology, v. 29, p. 55-58.

Pekar, S.F., Christie-Blick, N., Kominz, M.A., and Miller, K.G., 2002. Calibration between eustatic estimates from backstripping and oxygen isotopic records for the Oligocene: Geology, v. 30, p. 903-906.

Pekar, S.F., McHugh, C.M.G., Christie-Blick, N., Jones, M., Carbotte, S.M., Bell, R.E., and Lynch-Stieglitz, J., 2004. Estuarine processes and their stratigraphic record: Paleosalinity and sedimentation changes in the Hudson estuary (North America): Marine Geology, v. 209, p. 113-129.

Pekar, S.F., Christie-Blick, N., Miller, K.G., and Kominz, M.A., 2003. Quantitative constraints on the origin of stratigraphic architecture at passive continental margins: Oligocene sedimentation in New Jersey, U.S.A.: Journal of Sedimentary Research, v. 73, p. 227-243.

Saurborn, M.J., Karner, G.D., Christie-Blick, N., Plint, A.G., and Scholz, C.H., 2000. Accommodation changes in Upper Cretaceous sediments of the Alberta foreland basin: Implications for the role of changes in in-plane force on unconformity development: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, v. 32, p. A102.

Steckler, M.S., Mountain, G.S., Miller, K.G., and Christie-Blick, N., 1999. Reconstruction of Tertiary progradation and clinoform development on the New Jersey passive margin by 2-D backstripping: Marine Geology, v. 154, p. 399-420.