Shale Slate Metamorphism In Southern Appalachians

Developments in Petrology, Volume 10: Shale-Slate Metamorphism in Southern Appalachians provides information pertinent to shale-slate metamorphism. This book aims to develop a paleothermometer for shales and to be able to predict the reactions that would arise in response to an increase in temperature. Organized into 10 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the mineral, isotopic, chemical, petrographic, and structural changes that occur during late-stage diagenesis. This text then examines the petrology and texture of a series of physilites ranging from the middle diagenesis zone to the greenschist facies. Other chapters consider the X-ray analyses of the Conasauga samples, which show that most of the parameters that can be measured have a systematic trend that can be related to increasing grade of metamorphism. This book discusses as well chlorite as a common component of shales and low-grade metamorphic rocks. The final chapter deals with the carbonate rocks. This book is a valuable resource for petrologists.

This book provides a comprehensive and critical summary of clay mineral literature that relates to geology and geologic processes, making it useful both as a reference book for geologists and as a text for the specialist. The book encompasses the full scope of clay-shale geology. An introductory chapter provides basic background terminology and classification. This is followed by a relatively long chapter on the structure and composition of the various clay minerals. Chapter 3 provides an introduction to soil formation, chemical weathering, microbial alteration and the pedogenic formation of clay minerals. Chapters 4 and 5 cover the continental and marine transport, and deposition of clays. Both mechanisms and examples are presented, ranging from biodepositional to the nepheloid layer. Chapter 6 reviews data on the low to high temperature formation of clay minerals from marine volcanics, and the growth of authigenic clays in shallow marine, brackish, and evaporite environments. Chapter 7, Diagenesis Metamorphism, covers both burial diagenesis and the processes occurring during the conversion of shale to clay. Chapter 8 discusses the formation of authigenic-diagenetic formation of clays in sandstones. Chapter 9 describes the temperal distribution of clay minerals in North and South America, Europe, Africa and the Atlantic Ocean. The clay suites are related to factors such as continental drift, tectonics, climate and environment. The final brief chapter covers compaction, lithification and some general features of shales. The book is liberally sprinkled with x-ray patterns, chemical analyses, and SEM and TEM pictures, in addition to hundreds of examples.

Reservoirs generally consist of sandstones or carbonates exhibiting heterogeneities caused by a wide range of factors. Some of these formed depositionally (e.g. as channels, palaeosols, clay seams or salts), others may be diagenetic in origin (e.g. carbonate or silica cemented zones, authigenic clays, karstic surfaces). The severity with which diagenesis affects rock systems results from the interplay between the diagenetic process itself and the timescale over which it operated. The book provides a wide-ranging overview of diagenetic processes and responses in calcareous, argillaceous, arenaceous and carbon-rich (microbial and organic) sedimentary systems. It introduces diagenetic concepts, reviews existing knowledge, and shows how existing qualitative approaches might be developed in more quantitative ways. Several chapters consider mass balance calculations and the temporal and spatial aspects of diagenetic processes. It is unique, as a textbook, in providing such a breadth of diagenetic subject range and such depth of coverage in each topic. It provides a source reference for advanced students and professionals active in reservoir and aquifer studies.

The 19 original papers on the tectonic evolution of mountain systems were collected to mark the 50th anniversary of Price's description of the Canadian Cordillera. A sampling of topics turns up the driving mechanism and three-dimensional circulation of plate tectonics, the Belt-Purcell Basic as the keystone of the Rocky Mountain fold-and-thrust belt in the US and Canada, Silurian-Devonian orogenic events in the central Appalachians and the crystalline southern Appalachians, and defining the eastern boundary of the North Asian craton from structural and subsidence history studies of the Verkhoyansk fold-and-thrust belt. A fold-out sheet of color maps and diagrams is tucked into a pocket inside the back cover.