Highlights: Zany Zircons Mix It Up

Provenance data from sand-sized sediment is an important tool in sedimentology, tectonics and structural geology. To understand the role of sedimentary process in controlling provenance signatures in sand-sized sediment at the scale of entire sediment dispersal systems, Sickmann and others explore U-Pb detrital-zircon data from a series of modern second-order river-to-deep-marine depositional systems in central California. The results illustrate that changes in provenance signatures from sand-sized sediment across dispersal systems and between dispersal systems potentially are influenced by sedimentary processes - and not by tectonic evolution of sources or the evolution and expansion of drainage basins as commonly assumed. These data emphasize understanding the potentially important role of sediment mixing in the marine realm, systems with changes in sediment pathways that can create variable pathways.

Detrital-zircon mixing and partitioning in fluvial to deep marine systems, central California, U.S.A. by Zachary T. Sickmann, Charles K. Paull, and Stephan A. Graham