Noel P. James - Böcker

This first IAS Special Publication contains the oral presentations from a special symposium on pelagic sediments held in Zurich in 1973. The aim of the symposium was to bring together sea-borne researchers involved with the Deep Sea Drilling Project and land-locked researchers studying ancient sediments. If you are a member of the International Association of Sedimentologists, for purchasing details, please see: http://www.iasnet.org/publications/details.asp?code=SP3

This textbook provides an overview of the origin and preservation of carbonate sedimentary rocks. The focus is on limestones and dolostones and the sediments from which they are derived. The approach is general and universal and draws heavily on fundamental discoveries, arresting interpretations, and keystone syntheses that have been developed over the last five decades. The book is designed as a teaching tool for upper level undergraduate classes, a fundamental reference for graduate and research students, and a scholarly source of information for practicing professionals whose expertise lies outside this specialty. The approach is rigorous, with every chapter being designed as a separate lecture on a specific topic that is encased within a larger scheme. The text is profusely illustrated with all colour diagrams and images of rocks, subsurface cores, thin sections, modern sediments, and underwater seascapes.Additional resources for this book can be found at: http://www.wiley.com/go/james/carbonaterocks

This textbook provides an overview of the origin and preservation of carbonate sedimentary rocks. The focus is on limestones and dolostones and the sediments from which they are derived. The approach is general and universal and draws heavily on fundamental discoveries, arresting interpretations, and keystone syntheses that have been developed over the last five decades. The book is designed as a teaching tool for upper level undergraduate classes, a fundamental reference for graduate and research students, and a scholarly source of information for practicing professionals whose expertise lies outside this specialty. The approach is rigorous, with every chapter being designed as a separate lecture on a specific topic that is encased within a larger scheme. The text is profusely illustrated with all colour diagrams and images of rocks, subsurface cores, thin sections, modern sediments, and underwater seascapes.Additional resources for this book can be found at: http://www.wiley.com/go/james/carbonaterocks

Landscapes of the past have always held an inherent fascination for ge­ ologists because, like terrestrial sediments, they formed in our environment, not offshore on the sea floor and not deep in the subsurface. So, a walk across an ancient karst surface is truly a step back in time on a surface formed open to the air, long before humans populated the globe. Ancient karst, with its associated subterranean features, is also of great scientific interest because it not only records past exposure of parts of the earth's crust, but preserves information about ancient climate and the movement of waters in paleoaquifers. Because some paleokarst terranes are locally hosts for hydrocarbons and base metals in amounts large enough to be economic, buried and exhumed paleokarst is also of inordinate practical importance. This volume had its origins in a symposium entitled "Paleokarst Systems and Unconformities-Characteristics and Significance," which was orga­ nized and convened by us at the 1985 midyear meeting of the Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. The symposium had its roots in our studies over the last decade, both separately and jointly, of a number of major and minor unconformities and of the diverse, and often spectacular paleokarst features associated with these unconformities.

This book documents and interprets the onshore Cenozoic temperate carbonate depositional system along the southern margin of Australia. These strata, deposited in four separate basins, together with the extensive modern marine system offshore, comprise the largest such cool-water carbonate system on the globe.

This book documents and interprets the onshore Cenozoic temperate carbonate depositional system along the southern margin of Australia. These strata, deposited in four separate basins, together with the extensive modern marine system offshore, comprise the largest such cool-water carbonate system on the globe.

This book is the first comprehensive documentation and interpretation of modern neritic carbonate sediments on the southern Australian continental margin, the largest cool-water carbonate depositional system on the globe. The approach is classical but the information is new.  A brief chapter of introduction is followed by a section that describes the setting of the continental margin in terms of the regional geology, its evolution through time, the climate, and the complex oceanography. The setting is further explored in chapter 3 that outlines the Pleistocene history of sedimentation in this region. This is particularly important since many of the surficial sediments have a partial older history. The following section on the carbonate factory describes in detail the nature of the animals and plants that determine the nature of the sediments and the environmental conditions that control their distribution. The shelf itself cannot be discussed in isolation and thus a short chapter on the marginal marine environment is presented. The core of the book comprises two chapters that document the suite of depositional facies and their composition and then the suite of depositional environments where these sediments are found. The variety of deposits in this vast area is such that three chapters are devoted to the character of the materials on the southwestern shelf the south Australian sea and the southeastern shelf. The diagenesis that affects these sediments is tackled in a chapter after all the attributes are documented because they are intimately linked to different controls. The book finishes with a summary chapter that also addresses the various controls on sedimentation and models the effects to be expected when these are changed outside those present in the current realm. Audience: The book is an invaluable source of information about this vast region and will be a critical reference forresearchers, graduate students, and professionals engaged in marine and environmental research. It will be of particular importance for geologists interpreting the ancient rock record.