Turbidite
A deposit interpreted to have been laid down by a turbidity current, typically a sediment-laden density flow.
Language and route: English scientific suffix -ite built from turbidity, ultimately Latin turbidus ‘disturbed, cloudy’. English scientific suffix -ite built from turbidity, ultimately Latin turbidus ‘disturbed, cloudy’
Literal gloss: deposit associated with turbid flow
The name and its history
Term commonly attributed to Philip H. Kuenen; historical secondary review · 1957 for turbidite term; 1950 for density-current hypothesis paper
- What does the word literally mean?
- Immediate borrowing/formation pathway: English scientific suffix -ite built from turbidity, ultimately Latin turbidus ‘disturbed, cloudy’. Linguistic gloss: ‘deposit associated with turbid flow’. This is not automatically the original namer’s stated reason.
- What did the original author mean?
- After Kuenen and Migliorini’s 1950 experimental and field case for turbidity currents, Kuenen is credited in historical reviews with introducing turbidite for a deposit in 1957. The two dates mark different acts.
- Why was the name needed?
- Scientists needed to explain graded sandy beds in deep marine strata previously imagined to be largely tranquil, and to distinguish the moving current from its deposit.
- What evidence supported the original concept?
- Grading, sole structures, lateral extent, erosive bases, redeposited shallow-water fossils and laboratory density-flow experiments in the 1950 study.
- How has geology changed the concept?
- Bouma’s idealised 1962 five-part sequence became influential, but not all turbidites are complete Bouma sequences and similar structures may develop through different flows.
Further historical context
After Kuenen and Migliorini’s 1950 experimental and field case for turbidity currents, Kuenen is credited in historical reviews with introducing turbidite for a deposit in 1957. The two dates mark different acts.
Scientists needed to explain graded sandy beds in deep marine strata previously imagined to be largely tranquil, and to distinguish the moving current from its deposit.
Grading, sole structures, lateral extent, erosive bases, redeposited shallow-water fossils and laboratory density-flow experiments in the 1950 study.
Bouma’s idealised 1962 five-part sequence became influential, but not all turbidites are complete Bouma sequences and similar structures may develop through different flows.
Editorial qualification
1950 is the process-argument publication, not established first use of the term “turbidite”; 1957 naming attribution is secondary.
Related names
Flysch · Greywacke · Graded bedding · Cross-bedding · Facies
Sources
- Kuenen & Migliorini (1950), Turbidity Currents as a Cause of Graded Bedding — Original journal abstract examined; historical process argument and observations
- 50 years of the turbidite paradigm: critical retrospective — Historical Kuenen 1957 term and limitations of classical deepwater models
- The Bouma Sequence and the turbidite mind set (1997) — Later reevaluation of deposit/process interpretation
- Turbidites and turbidity currents from Alpine flysch (historical retrospective) — Review of transfer from Swiss geology to deep-water models; not a Studer original