Vertical Crustal Movement

Vertical crustal movement includes the vertical uplift or subsidence of the Earth’s crust. Crustal uplift ends sedimentation on the Earth’s surface and causes the denudation of previous areas of deposition, resulting in formation of unconformity in the strata (such as the unconformity in the Ordovician to Early Carboniferous strata in the North China Platform). When subsidence occurs later, sedimentation begins again and forms a sedimentary discontinuity in the newly deposited strata, resulting in a disconformity. If the period of the sedimentary discontinuity is long and the denudation is significant, an extensive planation surface or a peneplain can develop with widely distributed siliceous conglomerates (such as the Middle Devonian conglomerate in the Yangtze Platform).