The North Sea and northeastern Bering Sea: a comparative study of the occurrence and geometry of sand bodies of two shallow epicontinental shelves

Abstract

The present-day shallow marine basins can be subdivided into marginal and epicontinental shelf areas. The occurrence, geometry and formation of large sand bodies in the southern bight of the North Sea and the Chirikov Basin in the northeastern Bering Sea are discussed here. The North Sea is mainly used as an example for reconstructing a sedimentation model. The large sand bodies which occur in the two basins consist of a lower sequence of sand banks and an upper sequence of stacked sand waves. The geometry and arrangement of the different lithotypes are not only controlled by the latest sea level rise, but also by the basin geometry. Peripheric basins. such as the southern bight of the North Sea show a concentric aggradational pattern; semi-peripheric basins. such as the Chirikov Basin, show an onlap pattern. Based on data from the North Sea and partly from the Chirikov Basin a hypothetical stratigraphic cross section is constructed which can be used for interpreting ancient analogues.