RECOGNITION OF INTERFLUVE SEQUENCE BOUNDARIES - INTEGRATING PALEOPEDOLOGY AND SEQUENCE STRATIGRAPHY

In shallow-marine and coastal-plain strata, sequence boundaries are ea sily recognized at the base of incised valley fills. Between valleys, however, it is more difficult to recognize sequence boundaries where t hey are expressed as interfluve paleosols, We suggest that interfluve paleosols can be most reliably identified using a combination of (1) s tratigraphic position; (2) field observations such as thickness, struc ture, color, and degree of rooting; and (3) micromorphological feature s such as bioturbation fabric, clay coatings, ferruginous features, an d siderite and barite, Only micromorphology permits recognition of tem poral changes in drainage, surface stability, and protracted pauses in sedimentation that typify these surfaces. This three-part approach ha s been successfully employed to identify interfluve sequence-bounding paleosols in the Cenomanian Dunvegan Formation in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada.