Applied Micro Palaentology ebook is available to be downloaded here now.
- Title: Applied Micro Palaentology
- Author: David Graham Jenkins
- Publisher: Springer
- Pages: 274
According to Daniel J. Jones in his Introduction to Microfossils in 1956, micropalaeontology became an applied science in 1877 “when the age of the strata in a water well near Vienna, Austria, was determined as Middle Miocene by the use of Foraminifera”. The real impetus into research and applied micropalaeontology came during the 1920s in the United States of America when microfossils were used to determine the age of drill cuttings in the oil industry. Major oil companies established their own micropalaeontological laboratories but from early on,
independent consultant firms were also set up to examine micro palaeontological samples.
Micropalaeontology has not only established biostratigraphic frameworks for oil producing basins all over the world but it has also made major advances in our understanding of palaeoenvironments associated with both source and reservoir rocks. Micropalaeontology has also become a useful aid to engineering and https://telegram.me/Geologybooks economic geology.
As a micropalaeontologist who has worked both for a major oil company and as a consultant, I have selected seven case studies to illustrate the modern use of microfossils. The basis of palaeoecology is the study of modern taxa in known environments. The first chapter by Simon Houghton is a study of Recent coccolith sedimentation patterns and transport in the North Sea: these data could be used in evaluating Cenozoic marginal and continental shelf areas. Ostracods are also very good palaeoenvironmental indicators and Michael Keen provides examples from the Tertiary and Early Cretaceous, in Chapter 2.
Offshore biogenic gas seeps provide clues about petroleum reservoirs, and Robert Jones describes a study of benthonic foraminifera associated with such a seep in the North Sea in Chapter 3. Philip Copestake then describes the application of micropalaeontology in the search for hydrocarbons in the North Sea Basin in Chapter 4. This is followed by Richard Tyson’s description of palynofacies analysis of total kerogen and palynomorph assemblages in order to determine depositional environments and hydrocarbon source rock potential. In Chapter 6 Robert Jones and his ten colleagues interpret the sequence stratigraphy of the Early Cretaceous Barrow Group of the North-West Shelf, Australia, using palaeontological and sedimentological data. Finally, Malcolm Hart provides examples of the application of micropalaeontology to both
engineering and economic geology, including the Channel Tunnel site investigation, in Chapter 7.