Comment on “Internal waves, an under-explored source of turbulence events in the sedimentary record” by L. Pomar, M. Morsilli, P. Hallock, and B. Bádenas [Earth-Science Reviews, 111 (2012), 56–81]

This discussion is an attempt to alert the sedimentologic community that there is an immediate need to carry out fundamental research on process sedimentology of internal waves and internal tides in modern oceans. Despite the exhaustive theoretical, experimental, observational, and numerical analyses of modern internal waves and internal tides by oceanographers, with their focus on ocean mixing and modeling, there are absolutely no core-based studies by sedimentologists on the origin of primary sedimentary structures formed by baroclinic currents associated with internal waves and internal tides in modern marine environments. As a consequence, there are no objective sedimentological criteria for distinguishing internal-wave deposits. Amid this knowledge vacuum, the temptation to interpret ancient rock record as internal-wave deposits must be tempered.