A significant percentage of the world's sedimentary cover is deposited by turbidity currents, the behavior of a turbid flow is governed by the difference in density between it and the ambient fluid, by the shear stresses of its upper and lower limit, by its height and the angle of slope through which it flows.
urbidity currents operate in very diverse sedimentary contexts, but they are particularly effective in submarine canyons and constitute the most important mechanism for mobilizing and transferring sediment from shallow marine areas (shelfs) to deeper marine ones (ocean basins). ver time, the test of these types of currents have been tested in laboratories, since they are very difficult to experiment in the natural environment, from these experiments it is known that they show a characteristic geometry as they move, a part frontal or “head”, where the coarse sediment (from microconglomerate to coarse sand) is concentrated; an intermediate part or "body", the sediment that is dragged is medium-fine grain sand and a distal part or "tail", where clay silt is found. The flow of detail in the head is forward and upward, which initially causes strong erosion on the top of the bed on which they travel. In the body and tail the flow is parallel to the slope. This type of currents sediments turbidite sands, these are generally thick sequences of sandstones and periodic intercalated shale, in which a series of sections or "intervals" are differentiated. t is what is known as the “Bouma sequence”, since said author was the first to describe it in 1962. These intervals, from the wall (base) to the top of the turbiditic layer are the following: • Interval A: massive or granuloclassified (direct granuloclassification; with a decrease in the grain size of the sediment towards the top) (from microconglomerate to coarse sand). • Interval B: with parallel lamination (in coarse to medium sand). • Interval C: with “ripples” (current ripples) (in medium to fine/very fine sand). • Interval D: with parallel lamination (in silt/clay).
• Interval E: non-turbiditic (with diverse lithology; marl, silt/clay,
fine-grained limestone, etc.). As each interval is deposited, the energy in the fluid is lost, that is, the minerals in the E interval deposit with very little energy.
