Terrestrial Depositional Systems

Terrestrial Depositional Systems: Deciphering Complexities through Multiple Stratigraphic Methods is the first collection of contributed articles that not only introduces young geoscientists to biostratigraphy, chemostratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy, and lithostratigraphy, but also provides seasoned practitioners with a standard reference that showcases the topic’s most recent developments in research and application. When studying complex depositional systems, scientists often need to rely on more than one stratigraphic technique to truly understand the sequence of historical events. Through a blend of specific analytical techniques, experiments, sampling methods, and working examples, this book provides a practical reference for addressing a range of depositional system challenges. This multi-contributed reference combines reviews of stratigraphic methods with individual case studies, providing readers with a broad scope of techniques that will aid their work in the interpretation and understanding of complex depositional systems. Offers multi-contributed expertise in biostratigraphy, chemostratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy, and lithostratigraphy, ensuring a thorough, yet topical coverage Features case studies in each chapter that underscore the range of applications of individual stratigraphic methods Provides detailed explanations of different analyses, data collection methods, and sampling techniques, making the content immediately implementable Includes more than 100 illustrations, figures, and photographs that provide visual representations of core concepts

Nonrenewable energy resources, comprising fossil fuels and uranium, are not ran domly distributed within the Earth's crust. They formed in response to a complex array of geologic controls, notably the genesis of the sedimentary rocks that host most commercial energy resources. It is this genetic relationship between economic re sources and environment that forms the basis for this book. Our grouping of petro leum, coal, uranium, and ground water may appear to be incongruous or artificial. But our basic premise is that these ostensibly disparate resources share common genetic attributes and that the sedimentological principles governing their natural distributions and influencing their recovery are fundamentally similar. Our combined careers have focused on these four resources, and our experiences in projects worldwide reveal that certain recurring geologic factors are important in controlling the distribution of com mercial accumulations and subsurface fluid flow. These critical factors include the shape and stability of the receiving basin, the major depositional elements and their internal detail, and the modifications during burial that are brought about in these sediments by pressure, circulating fluids, heating, and chemical reaction. Since the first edition of this book in 1983, there has been a quantum leap in the volume of literature devoted to genetic stratigraphy and refinement of sedimentologi cal principles and a commensurate increase in the application of these concepts to resource exploration and development.

"Offering a solid introduction to the principles and applications of sedimentology and stratigraphy, author Richard A. Davis Jr. emphasizes the integration of these two areas and covers both modern and ancient depositional environments using modern examples and excellent illustrations. The Second Edition presents updated technical information, and offers a major reorganization of chapters to promote greater clarity and to place greater emphasis on more current topics. Additional content highlights: provides new approaches to basic analysis, including sequence stratigraphy; integrates genetically related depositional environments that share a common thread in concurrent chapters; discusses topics such as sedimentary processes and structures, the desert system, the fluvial system, the delta system, the barrier island system, reefs and the carbonate platform system, the deep ocean system, and much more." --

This is a discount Black and white version. Some images may be unclear, please see BCCampus website for the digital version.This book was born out of a 2014 meeting of earth science educators representing most of the universities and colleges in British Columbia, and nurtured by a widely shared frustration that many students are not thriving in courses because textbooks have become too expensive for them to buy. But the real inspiration comes from a fascination for the spectacular geology of western Canada and the many decades that the author spent exploring this region along with colleagues, students, family, and friends. My goal has been to provide an accessible and comprehensive guide to the important topics of geology, richly illustrated with examples from western Canada. Although this text is intended to complement a typical first-year course in physical geology, its contents could be applied to numerous other related courses.

Accompanying CD-ROM contains digital version of this publication.

Deepwater Sedimentary Systems: Science, Discovery and Applications helps readers identify, understand and interpret deepwater sedimentary systems at various scales – both onshore and offshore. This book describes the best practices in the integration of geology, geophysics, engineering, technology and economics used to inform smart business decisions in these diverse environments. It draws on technical results gained from deepwater exploration and production drilling campaigns and global field analog studies. With the multi-decadal resilience of deepwater exploration and production and the nature of its inherent uncertainty, this book serves as the essential reference for companies, consultancies, universities, governments and deepwater practitioners around the world seeking to understand deepwater systems and how to explore for and produce resources in these frontier environments. From an academic perspective, readers will use this book as the primer for understanding the processes, deposits and sedimentary environments in deep water – from deep oceans to deep lakes. This book provides conceptual approaches and state-of-the-art information on deepwater systems, as well as scenarios for the next 100 years of human-led exploration and development in deepwater, offshore environments. The students taught this material in today’s classrooms will become the leaders of tomorrow in Earth’s deepwater frontier. This book provides a broad foundation in deepwater sedimentary systems. What may take an individual dozens of academic and professional courses to achieve an understanding in these systems is provided here in one book. Presents a holistic view of how subsurface and engineering processes work together in the energy industry, bringing together contributions from the various technical and engineering disciplines Provides diverse perspectives from a global authorship to create an accurate picture of the process of deepwater exploration and production around the world Helps readers understand how to interpret deepwater systems at various scales to inform smart business decisions, with a significant portion of the workflows derived from the upstream energy industry

Understanding basin-fill evolution and the origin of stratal architectures has traditionally been based on studies of outcrops, well and seismic data, studies of and inferences on qualitative geological processes, and to a lesser extent based on quantitative observations of modern and ancient sedimentary environments. Insight gained on the basis of these studies can increasingly be tested and extended through the application of numerical and analogue forward models. Present-day stratigraphic forward modelling follows two principle lines: 1) the deterministic process-based approach, ideally with resolution of the fundamental equations of fluid and sediment motion at all scales, and 2) the stochastic approach. The process-based approach leads to improved understanding of the dynamics (physics) of the system, increasing our predictive power of how systems evolve under various forcing conditions unless the system is highly non-linear and hence difficult or perhaps even impossible to predict. The stochastic approach is more direct, relatively simple, and useful for study of more complicated or less-well understood systems. Process-based models, more than stochastic ones, are directly limited by the diversity of temporal and spatial scales and the very incomplete knowledge of how processes operate and interact on the various scales. The papers included in this book demonstrate how cross-fertilization between traditional field studies and analogue and numerical forward modelling expands our understanding of Earth-surface systems.