Despite a globally growing seismic and outcrop analogue data set, the detailed (centimetre to decametre) internal stratal make up of deep‐marine basin‐floor ‘channelized‐lobe’ strata remain poorly known. An ancient analogue for modern, mixed‐sediment, passive margin, deep‐marine basin‐floor fans is the well‐preserved Neoproterozoic Upper and Middle Kaza groups in the southern Canadian Cordillera. This succession is a few kilometres thick and comprises six sedimentary facies representing deposition from different kinds of sediment‐gravity flows. Representative lateral and vertical assemblages of one or more of these facies comprise six stratal elements, including: isolated scours, avulsion splays, feeder channels, distributary channels, terminal splays, and distal and off‐axis fine‐grained turbidite units. The internal characteristics of the various stratal elements do not differ from more distal to more proximal settings, but the relative abundance of the various stratal elements does. The difference in relative abundance of stratal elements in the kilometre‐scale stratigraphy of the Kaza Group results in a systematic upward change in architecture. The systematic arrangement of the stratal elements within the interpreted larger bodies, or lobes, and then lobes within the basin‐floor fan, suggests a hierarchical organization. In this article a hierarchy is proposed that is based on avulsion but, also importantly, the location of avulsion. The proposed avulsion‐based hierarchical scheme will be a useful tool to bridge the scalar gap between outcrop and seismic studies by providing a single stratigraphic framework and terminology for basin‐floor stratal elements.

An expansive panel of well exposed (periglacial) strata of the Upper Kaza Group permitted a detailed study of the stratal architecture of proximal basin floor deposits in the Neoproterozoic Windermere turbidite system. Detailed stratigraphic and petrographic analyses identified six lithofacies: poorly-sorted, clast-rich mudstone (F1), thin-bedded siltstone and mudstone (F2), thick-bedded, massive sandstone (F3), medium-scale, cross-stratified sandstone (F4), mudstone-clast breccia (F5), and medium-bedded turbidites (F6). The spatial distribution of these facies identify five architectural elements: heterolithic feeder channel deposits (FA1), thinbedded intralobe turbidites (FA2), terminal splay deposits (FA3), distributary channel deposits (FA4), and isolated scours (FA5). FA 1-4 are genetically related and form the basic building blocks of large-scale basin floor depositional lobes. FA 5, which is isolated to the stratigraphic top of the study area, is interpreted to have formed in a base-of-slope setting, and its superposition on FA 1-4 suggests the long-term progradation of the Windermere turbidite