A Colour Atlas of Carbonate Sediments and Rocks Under the Microscope

Softcover  184 pages, 330 colour and b+w illustrations  ISBN 1874545847      £29.95

More than half of the world's petroleum is to be found in carbonate rocks, for example in the Middle East, the former USSR and in North America. These rocks show a bewildering diversity of grains and textures, due in part to the wealth of different fossil organisms which have contributed to carbonate sedimentation, and in part to a wide variety of diagenetic processes which can radically modify textures and obscure the depositional fabric.

Careful petrographic study with a polarising microscope is a key element of any study of carbonate sediments, as a companion to field or core logging, and as a necessary precursor to geochemical analysis. This atlas, which illustrates in full colour a range of features not attempted in any general textbook, is designed as a laboratory manual to keep beside the microscope, as an aid to identifying grain types and textures in carbonates. It will appeal alike to undergraduate and graduate students and to professionals in teaching institutions, research laboratories and industry.

Contents:
Introduction. Staining. Coated Grains: Definitions, Ooids, Pisoids, Oncoids, Other Coated Grains. Peloids, Aggregate Grains, Intraclasts & Lithoclasts. Bioclasts: Introduction, Bivalves, Gastropods, Cephalopods, Brachiopods, Corals, Stromatoporoids, Sponges, Bryozoans, Foraminifera, Echinoderms, Calcareous Algae, Trilobites, Ostracods, Worm Tubes and Vermiforms, Tentaculites, Tintinnids, Radiolarians, Microbial Structures. Diagenesis: Introduction, Micritization, Pedogenic Features, Cementation, Compaction & Tectonic Features, Neomorphism, Microspar & Pseudospar, Dolomites, Dedolomites, Silica, Evaporite & Pyrite Cements and Replacement. Porosity. Limestone Classification. Cathodoluminescence. Bibliography. Index.