Depositional Environments In Carbonate Rocks

This is the book you need to improve your interpretations of carbonates. Using a systematic treatment of the entire subject of carbonate depositional environments, this unique book is specifically designed for use by the non-specialist -- the petroleum geologist or field geologist -- who uses carbonate depositional environments in facies reconstructions and environmental intepretations. This classic work, covering settings from non-marine to deep water, focuses on the recognition of depositional environments with extenive use of color diagrams and photographs of sedimentary structures and facies assemblages. Although the ultimate purpose of this text is to improve exploration for oil, gas, and mineral deposits, it also includes environments not normally considered to be particularly prospective for oil and gas in an attempt to provide as complete a framework as possible for recognition of environments. Suitable for use as a textbook, this book is also an invaluable reference fo the specialist or advanced graduate student. It provides perspective on large-scale influences on carbonate depositional envionments such as tectonic patterns, fluctuations of sea level, variations of climate, and evolutionary patterns of organisms. --

Carbonate rocks (limestones and dolomites) constitute a major partof the geological column and contain not only 60% of the world'sknown hydrocarbons but also host extensive mineral deposits. Thisbook represents the first major review of carbonate sedimentologysince the mid 1970's. It is aimed at the advanced undergraduate -postgraduate level and will also be of major interest to geologistsworking in the oil industry. Carbonate Sedimentology is designed to take the readerfrom the basic aspects of limestone recognition and classificationthrough to an appreciation of the most recent developments such aslarge scale facies modelling and isotope geochemistry. Novelaspects of the book include a detailed review of carbonatemineralogy, non-marine carbonate depositional environments and anin-depth look at carbonate deposition and diagenesis throughgeologic time. In addition, the reviews of individual depositionalsystems stress a process-based approach rather than one centered onsimple comparative sedimentology. The unique quality of this bookis that it contains integrated reviews of carbonate sedimentologyand diagenesis, within one volume.

Since 1950 geologists have learned more about the origin and lithification of carbonate sediments than in all the previous years of the history of science. This is true in all the diverse fields of carbonate geology: the study of Recent environments, marine zoology and botany, organic geochemistry, trace element and isotope geochemistry, mineralogy, microfacies of depositional environments, and trace-fossil and sedimentary structure investigation. A synthesis of this new knowledge is just beginning to be formulated. The purpose of this volume is to introduce the advanced student and petroleum explorationist principally to one important aspect of this study: to some of the principles of carbonate geology which may serve to interpret the depositional environments of ancient strata and to better define their sequences and patterns. Chapter I is a brief review of principles of carbonate sedimentation. (For a full discussion of the mineralogy, geochemistry, and diagenesis of carbonates along with a review of Holocene sediments, one may refer to Bathurst's (1971) and Milliman's (1974) texts.) Chapter II reviews stratigraphic and paleotectonic concepts and discusses a general model for carbonate deposition. Chapter III offers an outline of carbonate petrography, concentrating on lithologic descrip tion for the purposes of environmental interpretation. For a further review of this subject and excellent photomicrographs, Horowitz and Potter (1971) and Majewske (1969) may be used.