Sedimentary Geology: Rocks, Environments and Stratigraphy
- Page ID
- 20361
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An undergraduate-level textbook that covers the fundamentals of sedimentology, depositional environments and stratigraphy. We provide a modest amount of text that focuses on essential concepts and support it with dozens of color photographs, illustrations, and videos. Captions accompanying the visual components highlight the major points but leave room for more detailed discussions and questions.
Book thumbnail shows the White River Badlands (Dennis Russell via Pixabay; CC0 Content)
- 1: Introduction
- Sedimentary rocks are extremely abundant, provide important archives of Earth's history, and are of profound economic and environmental significance.
- 2: Sediment Creation and Transport
- Sediment is created through a variety of physical and chemical weathering processes. It can be moved by fluids (air, water, and ice), and/or under the direct influence of gravity.
- 3: Describing Sediment and Sedimentary Rocks
- The size, shape, and composition of particles are the most important characteristics for the description and classification of sediment and sedimentary rock.
- 4: Sedimentary Structures
- Sedimentary structures form in response to the processes that were taking place during deposition. Understanding sedimentary structures allows us to reconstruct those processes and interpret the environment(s) in which they formed.
- 5: Siliciclastic Sedimentary Rocks
- Siliciclastic sedimentary rocks are composed of sediment that was deposited when moving particles came to rest. They can be subdivided into sandstones, conglomerates/breccias, and mudrocks based on grain size. They can be further subdivided based on mineralogy, texture, and other characteristics.
- 6: Carbonate Sedimentary Rocks
- Carbonate sedimentary rocks form when calcium and/or carbonate ions produced by chemical weathering combine with carbonate ions produced by the interaction of water and carbon dioxide. The Folk and Dunham classification schemes provide useful terminology for describing them in thin section and hand sample, respectively.
- 7: Chemical, Biochemical, and Other Sedimentary Rocks
- This chapter covers evaporites, siliceous sedimentary rocks, organic-rich rocks and other sedimentary rocks beyond clastics and carbonates. These rocks typically form via direct precipitation or because of the activity of organisms. Many of them are of great economic importance.
- 8: Diagenesis
- Diagenesis is the process that transforms sediment into sedimentary rock. The most important diagenetic processes are compaction (reduction in volume) and cementation (precipitation of mineral cements). A variety of diagenetic structures form in rocks as they undergo diagenesis.
- 9: Fossils
- A fossil is evidence of past life and can include preserved body parts, geochemical signatures, or even evidence of fossilized behaviors. This chapter begins with an overview of styles of preservation and descriptive terminology then provides a series of diagrams to aid with fossil identification.
- 10: Depositional Environments
- The lithologic characteristics, sedimentary structures, processes, and knowledge of fossils gained in previous chapters can be used as a powerful tool for interpreting depositional environments. This chapter provides an overview of the major clastic and carbonate environments and the characteristics and processes that can be expected in each.
- 11: Sea Level
- Transgressions and regressions record changes in shoreline position and water depth. Important terms to keep in mind when discussing sea level include water depth (distance between sediment surface and water surface), eustatic sea level (distance between center of the Earth and sea surface), and relative sea level (distance between sea surface and a datum).
- 12: Stratigraphy
- Stratigraphy is the study of the geometric relationships, composition, origin, age, and relationships between stratified rocks deposited at the surface of the Earth. These rocks can be subdivided and classified using a variety of criteria, but the most common approaches are based on lithology (lithostratigraphy), depositional trends (sequence stratigraphy), or seismic reflection data (seismic stratigraphy).
- 13: Appendices
- These appendices accompany the lab portion of Sedimentary Geology (GEOL 301) at SUNY Potsdam. Instructors might find them as a useful starting point for labs or discussions - particularly if modified to match the resources available at the reader's home institution.