Sandstone Depositional Environments
Sandstone Depositional Environments has proven to be one of AAPG's all-time best sellers, with multiple reprints and extensive use as a university textbook. The volume is specifically designed for the non-sedimentologist, the petroleum geologist, or the field geologist who needs to use sandstone depositional environments in facies reconstruction and environmental interpretations. Prediction of subsurface sandstone trends, diagenetic style, and continuity of reservoir porosity is strongly dependent on an understanding of original depositional environments. The volume consists of twelve chapters, each covering a major environmental setting for sandstone deposition from terrestrial to deep marine (glacial, eolian, alluvial fan, lacustrine, fluvial, deltaic, estuarine, tidal flat, barrier island, continental shelf, continental slope, and submarine fan). For each environment the modern depositional processes are described and compared to subsurface examples, with abundant illustrations and photographs. Different scales and perspectives are reviewed, using aerial photos, maps, seismic, cross sections, outcrops, cores, and thin sections. Each chapter is organized in a manner that it can be used effectively and independently for teaching purposes or as an analog reference for field study and subsurface interpretation.
Estuarine Deposits
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Published:January 01, 1982
Abstract
An estuary is a semi-enclosed marginal-marine body of water in which salinity is measurably diluted by fluvial discharge (Fairbridge, 1968). Sediments deposited in this setting are influenced by a complex combination of tides and tidal currents, oceanic waves, locally generated waves, river discharge, precipitation, temperature, and local flora and fauna. These factors differ markedly among the world's estuaries, and accordingly the sedimentary facies produced vary widely. Depositional facies have been examined in relatively few estuaries, mostly in temperate climates (Howard and Frey, 1975; Klein, 1977; Lauff, 1967). The extent to which results of these studies can be generalized is uncertain. Nonetheless, features found are very likely recognizable in many ancient estuary deposits.
This paper is based primarily on analysis of depositional facies in Willapa Bay, a mesotidal, temperate-climate estuary on the southwestern coast of Washington. This bay location hosted repeated estuary development during the Pleistocene epoch, and is enclosed on three sides by Pleistocene terrace deposits composed of ancient estuarine sediment. The ancient deposits provide not only a basis for comparing ancient and modern depositional facies, but also a model of internal stratigraphy in a substantial accumulation of estuary deposits.This paper is based primarily on analysis of depositional facies in Wil-lapa Bay, a mesotidal, temperate-climate estuary on the southwestern coast of Washington. This bay location hosted repeated estuary development during the Pleistocene epoch, and is enclosed on three sides by Pleistocene terrace deposits composed of ancient estuarine sediment. The ancient deposits provide