Sedimentology and Sedimentary Basins From Turbulence to Tectonics

by Leeder, Mike R.

• ISBN13: 9781405177832
• ISBN10: 1405177837
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-02-21
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

The sedimentary record on Earth stretches back more than 4.3 billion years and is present in more abbreviated forms on companion planets of the Solar System, like Mars and Venus, and doubtless elsewhere. Reading such planetary archives correctly requires intimate knowledge of modern sedimentary processes acting within the framework provided by tectonics, climate and sea or lake level variations. The subject of sedimentology thus encompasses the origins, transport and deposition of mineral sediment on planetary surfaces. The author addresses the principles of the subject from the viewpoint of modern processes, emphasising a general science narrative approach in the main text, with quantitative background derived in enabling 'cookie' appendices. The book ends with an innovative chapter dealing with how sedimentology is currently informing a variety of cognate disciplines, from the timing and extent tectonic uplift to variations in palaeoclimate. Each chapter concludes with a detailed guide to key further reading leading to a large bibliography of over 2500 entries. The book is designed to reach an audience of senior undergraduate and graduate students and interested academic and industry professionals.

Author Biography

Mike Leeder is Professor Emeritus at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. A geologist by training, at the University of Durham, he has researched and taught sedimentology since 1969, beginning as a graduate student at the Sedimentological Research Laboratory, University of Reading under the legendary Perce Allen and as faculty member at the Universities of Leeds and East Anglia. He is particularly interested in sedimentological fluid dynamics, basin analysis and the links between sedimentary processes and climate change.

Table of Contents

Making Sediment

Clastic sediment as chemical and physical breakdown products

Carbonate, siliceous, iron-rich and evaporite sediments

Sediment grain properties

Moving fluid

Fluid basics

Types of Fluid Motion

Transporting sediment

Sediment in fluid and fluid flow - general

Bedforms and sedimentary structures in flows and under waves

Sediment gravity flows and their deposits

Liquefaction, fluidisation and sliding sediment deformation

Major external controls on sedimentation and sedimentary environments

Major External Controls on Sedimentation

Continental Sedimentary Environments

Rivers

Subaerial fans: alluvial and colluvial

Aeolian sediments in low-latitude deserts

Lakes

Ice

Marine Sedimentary Environments

Estuaries

River and fan deltas

Linear clastic shorelines

Shelves

Calcium carbonate-evaporite shorelines, shelves and basins

Deep ocean

Sedimentary Architecture of Sedimentary basins

Sediment in sedimentary basins: a user's guide

Topics: Sediment solutions to interdisciplinary problems

Sediments solve wider interdisciplinary problems

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.