I wasn't aware of Marimekko charts[1] (well, not by that name anyway) before reading your comment -- but are they commonly used with a time axis? In the examples in [1] they seem like a pretty straight forward visualization of volume?

Off the top of my head I can't think of an example where a time axis wouldn't normally be used to visualize variation over time...? Perhaps quarter earnings as contributing to yearly earnings?

[1] http://www.fusioncharts.com/chart-primers/marimekko-chart/?M...