Scaling properties of the turbidite bed thickness

Numerous recent scientific studies provided some interesting statistical properties of the turbidite bed thickness and launched our effort into their practical utilization within alternative sedimentological interpretation of turbiditic formations from the Outer Western Carpathians. The aim of this strudy was to point to the possible utilization of scaling properties of the turbidite bed thickness for the interpretation of submarine fan environments without significant additional costs. The turbidite bed thickness distributions and frequency histograms were considered with this purpose.
There is a variability of the turbidite bed thickness distributions, showing mostly lognormal, negative exponential or power law types, proposed by many authors in a lot of last studies, similarly to a variety of controls that has been suggested responsible for this phenomenon. As for the possible utilization in the interpretation of submarine fan environment, it has been proposed that different distributions may reflect different fan processes and environments. All of studied turbidite bed thickness datasets, spanning from middle fan througth outer fan to fan-fringe environments, exhibited lognormal distributions. Considering that while the lognormal distribution has been suggested to best correlate with fan-lobe deposits and power law distribution best correlate with inter-fan deposits, in the broad sense of word, the detection of lognormal distributions agreed with the interpretation of studied sequences as lobe-interlobe deposits. Visual inspection of the shape of the turbidite bed thickness distributions of studied formations displayed some features, diversely interpreted in many recent studies, indicating there is need further research to specify any parameters of the turbidite bed thickness distributions, which might be considered characteristic for particular submarine fan environment.
Vertical variabilities in the bed thicknesses were considered on the basis of frequency histograms, revealing the differences between regular and irregular architecture of specific submarine fan depositional environments. Alternative interpretation of studied turbiditic formations has suggested that the acquaintance with the properties of the turbidite bed thickness might provide an important statistical device for optional confirmation or attentive re-evaluation of sedimentological interpretations of submarine fan. Low financial requirements together with possible utilization in both the modelling of hydrocarbon reservoirs and the interpretation of submarine fan environment give the reasons for further research in this field.