The Geology of Stratigraphic Sequences
It has been more than a decade since the appearance of the First Edition of this book. Much progress has been made, but some controversies remain. The original ideas of Sloss and of Vail (building on the early work of Blackwelder, Grabau, Ulrich, Levorsen
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Andrew D. Miall
The Geology of Stratigraphic Sequences Second Edition
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Prof. Andrew D. Miall University of Toronto Dept. Geology Toronto ON M5S 1A1 Canada [email protected]
ISBN 978-3-642-05026-8 e-ISBN 978-3-642-05027-5 DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-05027-5 Springer Heidelberg Dordrecht London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2009943585 © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Cover design: deblik Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Preface to Second Edition
It has been more than a decade since the appearance of the First Edition of this book. Much progress has been made, but some controversies remain. The idea that the stratigraphic record could be subdivided into sequences and that these sequences store essential information about basin-forming and subsidence processes remains as powerful an idea as when it was first formulated. L. L. Sloss and P. R. Vail are to be credited with the establishment of the modern era of sequence stratigraphy. The definition and mapping of sequences have become a standard part of the basin-analysis process. Subsurface methods make use of advanced seismic-reflection analysis, with three-dimensional seismic methods, and seismic geomorphology adding important new dimensions to the analysis. Several advanced textbooks have now appeared that deal with the recognition and definition of sequences and their interpretation in terms of the evolution of depositional systems, the recognition and correlation of bounding surfaces, and the interpretation of sequences in terms of changing accommodation and supply. This is not one of these books. The main purpose of this book remains the same as it was for the first edition, that is, to situate sequences within the broader context of geological processes, and to answer the question: why do sequences form? Geoscientists might thereby be better equipped to extract the maximum information from the record of sequences in a given basin or region. Central to the concept of the sequence is the deductive model that sequences carry messages about the “pulse of the earth”. In the early modern period of sequence stratigraphy (the late 1970s
