Dish structure

Due to the similarity in its shape to a dish, the structure, sometimes also referred to as dish-and-pillar or dish-and-pipe , was named after the common kitchen item.

The bounding surfaces are thin, (and usually) dark(er) laminae; they are richer in clay, silt or organic material than the surrounding sediment.

Within an individual bed an increase in concavity combined with a simultaneous decrease in width of the dishes can often be observed towards the top.

Good examples of dish structure can be seen for instance in the Jack Fork Group in Oklahoma, in Ordovician turbidites at Cardigan in Wales, in deep-sea fan deposits near San Sebastián in Spain and in the Cerro Torro Formation of southern Chile.

Only since Lowe and LoPiccolos's study, the structure is recognized as penecontemporaneous or secondary, formed during the dewatering of rapidly deposited quick or underconsolidated beds.

The sideways directed fluid motion has the tendency to leave fines along the low-permeability barriers which eventually become the clay-enriched laminae of the dishes.