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# Between beds and sequences: stratigraphic organization at intermediate scales in the Quaternary of the Virginia coast, USA

## Details

**Authors** Swift, Donald J. P. and Parsons, Brian S. and Foyle, Anthony and Oertel, George F.

**Year** 2003

**Publisher** Sedimentology

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Geology

**Secondary disciplines** Oceanography

**Applied** false

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-3091.2003.00540.x) 
10.1046/j.1365-3091.2003.00540.x

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To describe stratigraphic organization at scales intermediate between individual beds and whole sequences.

### Who or what was studied (sample)

Quaternary deposits of the Virginia coast, USA. Number of sections or cores not obtained.

### How they did it (methods)

Stratigraphic description of the coastal deposits, classifying facies assemblages (depositional systems) bounded by a source diastem and a surface of closure, and comparing their architecture with that of sequences.

### What they found (results)

The authors identify depositional systems as an intermediate level of stratigraphic organization, with as few as 12 system types in the Quaternary of the Virginia coast. Systems-bounding surfaces are notably more continuous than internal (gradational) facies boundaries. The systems are allometric and self-similar, recur at larger scales through autocyclic or allocyclic processes, nest conformably within sequence architecture, and also follow rules that sequence architecture does not.

## Commentary

### In short

A study of Quaternary coastal deposits in Virginia argues that rock records are organized at an intermediate scale between single beds and whole sequences. Bounded, repeating depositional systems nest within the larger sequence framework while obeying rules of their own.

### Response

The paper bears on the systems pattern directly: depositional systems are wholes composed of facies and nested inside larger sequences, and the authors report rules at the system level that are not rules of the sequence level. The distinction pattern appears in the contrast between continuous system-bounding surfaces and gradational internal facies boundaries. The fit is partial for relationships and perspectives, which the authors do not treat as central. This record rests on the abstract and publisher metadata only.

**Patterns it shows** D, S

Shows the structure is there

**Added** 2026-10-14

**How to cite this** Swift, Donald J. P. and Parsons, Brian S. and Foyle, Anthony and Oertel, George F. (2003). Between beds and sequences: stratigraphic organization at intermediate scales in the Quaternary of the Virginia coast, USA. Sedimentology.