AQUAVORTEX: A MODEL FOR THE FORMATION OF CERTAIN PIPE STRUCTURES NEAR THE PermoTriassic BOUNDARY IN SOUTHERN UTAH

The sandstone/siltstone facies of the Hoskinnini Member of the Triassic Moenkopi Formation in southern Utah and northeastern Arizona contains a variety of exotic breccias, graded beds, soft-sediment deformation and clastic pipe structures interspersed within redbed sabkha deposits.Certain clastic megapipes in-filled from above and exhibiting evidence of rotation are described in this investigation. These pipes, associated breccias and soft-sediment deformation structures support an extreme and complex high energy event horizon situated between undisputed Triassic and Permian beds where the boundary disconformity represents an approximate hiatus of three million years. The western edge of the sabkha facies of the Hoskinnini Member appears to represent the western shoreline of Pangaea. It is proposed here that the unusual, vertically injected clastic megapipes were excavated and in-filled by massive water charged vortices generated by eastward onset tsunami originating in the late to end-Permian Panthalassa Sea.