Information from modern shallow-water carbonate depositional settings is commonly incorporated into the analysis of reservoir-scale heterogeneity problems and exploration-scale plays. The modern analogs provide a means to illustrate the distribution of porous carbonate facies within the overall setting. Often these analogs become an important part of the geologic model because they show the scale, trend, and interrelationships of facies that might be related to reservoir and nonreservoir distribution.

Over the last few years, we have repeatedly been approached by Chevron's geologists to help supply analog examples for their work. We have been able to direct them to the appropriate literature, and in a few cases, have supplied a photograph or drawing for their use. In most cases, however, we were unable to readily provide to them good illustrative material for these examples. As a result of this frustrating situation, we initiated a project to acquire and process Landsat and SPOT satellite images from select key modern carbonate areas that should help fulfill the needs of most exploration and development geologists for analogs. These images from several "classic" areas, including southern Florida, the Bahamas, the Caicos Platform in the British West Indies, Yucatan and Chinchorro Bank in Mexico, Belize, Great Barrier Reef and Shark Bay in Australia, and the coastline of Abu Dhabi (Figures 1A-1C), form the basis of this book.In addition to their use as analogs, the satellite images can be important teaching materials for carbonate training courses. Many of the same modern areas are used as case studies to