Plate 41

Plane-parallel laminae in littoral sands


A belt of littoral sands of Pleistocene age ("yellow sands") borders the foothills of the northern and central Apennines along the Adriatic (northeastern) side of the chain. The sand is fine grained, well sorted, fossiliferous and locally contains pebbles. It has a poor degree of cementation, except for some levels parallel to bedding and laterally discontinuous (as shown by the picture).

Bedding planes are apparently parallel, but at a closer inspection they appear to converge and diverge at small angles. Stratification is actually wedge-shaped, and all beds are laminated. Skeletal remains are strewn on the planes of laminae. We can infer that this is the section of a fossil beach, whose facies and growth model are similar to those of the Modern foreshore shown in the previous plate.


Sedimentographica