Accommodation is a fundamental concept in

sequence stratigraphy Sequence stratigraphy is a branch of geology, specifically a branch of stratigraphy, that attempts to discern and understand historic geology through time by subdividing and linking sedimentary deposits into unconformity bounded units on a variety ...

, a subdiscipline of

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...

. It is defined as the space that is available for the deposition of

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sand an ...

s. Accommodation space can be pictured as the volume between the actual surface and the theoretical equilibrium surface where deposition and erosion are in balance at every point. In marine environments, this equilibrium level is sea level. In marine environments, changes in accommodation on long temporal scales is mainly determined by

tectonics Tectonics (; ) are the processes that control the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. These include the processes of mountain building, the growth and behavior of the strong, old cores of continents k ...

or by changes in

eustatic sea level The eustatic sea level is the distance from the center of the earth to the sea surface. An increase of the eustatic sea level can be generated by decreasing glaciation, increasing spreading rates of the mid-ocean ridges or more mid-oceanic ridges. ...

. In

fluvial In geography and geology, fluvial processes are associated with rivers and streams and the deposits and landforms created by them. When the stream or rivers are associated with glaciers, ice sheets, or ice caps, the term glaciofluvial or fluviog ...

environments, changes in accommodation are controlled by the

gradient In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p is the "direction and rate of fastest increase". If the gradi ...

, discharge and sediment supply. In the lower parts of river systems, the change of accommodation in the fluvial system is controlled by the changes in marine accommodation. The term is also sometimes used to described processes by which room is made for

pluton In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...

s to intrude

country rock Country rock is a genre of music which fuses rock and country. It was developed by rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These musicians recorded rock records using country themes, vocal s ...

References

{{reflist Sequence stratigraphy