A reinterpretation of the Neogene emersion of central Belgium based on the sedimentary environment of the Diest Formation and the origin of the drainage pattern

The 20 to 25 m thick sand deposits crowning the Flemish Hills from Cassel to Flobecq are geologically mapped as Diest Formation (Upper Miocene), but they are now argued to belong to a different formation, for which the new name of Flemish Hills Formation is proposed. They are interpreted as a vertical succession of inner shelf, lower shoreface to upper shoreface deposits of an exposed, wave-dominated coast at the south shore of an open shelf sea. They constitute a normal regressive progradation fed by a mixture of shelf and continent-derived clastics. At least near Flobecq, the top may contain... Mehr ...