Thesis (Ph. D.)--Dept. of Geology and Geophysics, Faculty of Science, University of Sydney, 1999. / Title from title screen (viewed February 12, 2009). Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1991. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 168-184). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin, 1968. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 50).

Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Alberta, 2010. / Title from PDF file main screen (viewed on July 2, 2010). A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta. Includes bibliographical references.

Quad 9 of the U.K.C.S., North Sea is located 215 miles NE of Aberdeen. It contains four producing fields with over 400 mmbbls of oil and NGL's and 5.1 TCF of gas initially in place. The major reservoir unit is the Middle Jurassic (Bajocian to Bathonian) Beryl Formation, a marginal to shallow marine deposit which varies in thickness from 150' to 1100' across the studied area. It was deposited within the Beryl Embayment, a transfer zone between two actively extending basin bounding faults of the South Viking Graben, prior to the onset of the major rifting phase during the Callovian to Ryazanian. The objectives of the thesis were to provide a revised sedimentological model for the area accounting for the contrasting sedimentary styles present within the Beryl Formation and to unify the different correlation schemes used by the different operating companies in the area. It was based on well data from 58 cored and a further 79 uncored sections spreading nine licence blocks within Quad 9. Reservoir engineering, biostratigraphic and structural data has also been used for a fully integrated study. Initial core logging identified 32 facies and 10 trace fossil assemblages which were subsequently integrated into 14 facies associations. These were then extrapolated further into the uncored sections by wireline facies associations. Correlation was initially driven by comparison of cored sections but finalised by an integration of the reservoir engineering and biostratigraphic data. Outcrop work on the Middle Jurassic of Skye and Companian of eastern Utah provided an analogue study to accompany the downhole data. Quad 9 can be split up into three main areas distinguished by different stratigraphic histories, the southern area consisting of the Buckland and Sorby Fields, the central area consisting of the Beryl, Nevis, Ness and Linnhe Fields and a northern area consisting the Bruce and Keith Fields.

Biot's theory - which explains how sediments respond to stresses - has been applied to different sea-bed sediments. To successfully use Biot's theory as a predictive tool, sensitivity studies showed the following experimental measurements are required: the frame bulk modulus. the shear modulus, the tortuosity, the permeability and the porosity. These properties were determined for turbidite sediments from the North Atlantic Ocean (Site 1). and carbonates from the Western Indian Ocean -. (Site 2). The following experimental observations " were made: the permeability varies over 7 orders of magnitude for turbidites from Site 1 due to technique dependent and intrinsic reasons; in-situ shear moduli are 4 times greater than values determined from samples in the laboratory; shear modulus results from resonant column and bender element transducer techniques agree well: experiments designed for obtaining the frame bulk modulus are problematic, and it is difficult to determine pore size / geometry parameters apart from the tortuosity. Biot's theory was used to predict the response of sea-bed sediments to hydrodynamic and ultrasonic stresses. A new low frequency hydrodynamic boundary-value solution was developed from Biot's theory, allowing predictions of tidally-induced pore-pressures. Comparisons between predictions and in-situ measurements at Site 1 were favourable, verifying Biot's theory at low frequencies. At ultrasonic frequencies, Biot predictions of the velocity and attenuation of fast and slow compressional waves were compared to experimental measurements. The slow wave was argued to be induced at free-flow boundaries. and was found to be very difficult to detect in soft water-saturated sediments. A qualitative agreement was shown between Biot fast wave attenuation predictions and new experimental attenuation measurements on a bar of sandstone. For Sites 1 and 2, Biot predictions for the increases in the fast wave velocity for high porosity - permeability sediments agreed with experimental measurements. Elsewhere in the literature, this behaviour has been linked to an increase of the frame bulk modulus with increases in porosity. Alternatively, it was argued such increases in fast wave velocity can be attributed to Biot's dispersion mechanism. and hence are a verification of his theory at high frequencies.

The Lower Carboniferous ('mid'-Courceyan to early Chadian) Black Rock Limestone ramp succession of SW Britain, accumulated along the southern margin of the Welsh-Brabant Massif during the early stage of development of the SW European foreland basin. Two depositional cycles are recognized which culminate in the subaerial exposure of those sequences in a more landward setting. The lower depositional cycle includes the Barry Harbour Limestone Formation, which contains a variety of storm-related sedimentary structures including hummocky cross-stratification. This is conformably overlain by the tidally influenced, cross-stratified Brofiscin Oolite Formation which locally displays evidence of subaerial exposure. Seven sedimentary lithofacies are identified in these two formations, which record a distal to proximal, shallowing-upward trend that passes from beneath mean wave-base to above fairweather wave-base. The upper depositional cycle of the Friars Point Limestone Formation includes the volcanics at Middle Hope, the Waulsortian facies at Castlemartin and Cannington Park, and is capped by the (herein named) Portishead Paleosol Beds (near Bristol). Above the basal transgressive sequence, the Friars Point Limestone consists of two distinct offshore ramp facies belts. The more proximal inner ramp facies belt was more strongly influenced by storm-related currents and exhibits tubular tempestites (storm sediment-filled burrows). The finer-grained, outer ramp facies belt is extensively bioturbated and preserves few features indicative of deposition from storm-related currents. The effects and relative timing of differential subsidence was elucidated by using the well documented biostratigraphy to separate the succession into isochronous units. The onset of pronounced differential subsidence was signified by volcanic activity at Middle Hope (Weston-super-Mare). The volcanic tuffs form a coarsening- and shallowing-upward sequence which records the development of a localised, probably non-emergent, offshore-volcanic high. Recognition of a major eustatic sea level fall at the end of the Courceyan and during the early part of the Chadian, is revealed by studying the decline of the Waulsortian reefs in an offshore ramp setting and evaluating the regional significance of the Portishead Paleosol Beds. Overall, the development of the Black Rock Limestone ramp was the result of the interplay between eustacy and tectonism. A full petrographic and geochemical analysis of the Waulsortian dolomites at Castlemartin, including the use of stable isotopes revealed that dolomitization occurred during burial, most probably as a result of basin dewatering.

No description available.

No description available.

The high elevated (ca. 1100 m) continental Kalahari Basin (KB) of southern Africa and the linked lower lying (ca. 400 m) Congo Basin (CB) of central Africa preserve in their interiors extensive sedimentary rock sequences and sediments that represent a unique record of the Phanerozoic geodynamic and climatic evolution of sub-Saharan Africa. In this thesis, field observations and new borehole data from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Botswana are integrated with new paleontology and geochronology to present a substantially revised stratigraphy for the CB, and south-central Africa in general. This work also introduces a new multiphase model for the subsidence and uplift history of the CB, and improves correlations with the Cape-Karoo Basin (CKB) of South Africa and the Paraná Basin (PB) of south-east Brazil. Four deep boreholes, each between 2 and 4.5 km deep, drilled in the centre of the CB in the 1950’s and 1970’s are re-examined together with the colonial literature (in French) and available seismic data. This stratigraphic and basin analysis is complemented with new U-Pb dates of detrital zircons from core-samples of two of the boreholes (Samba and Dekese), as well as from samples collected during field work in the Kwango region of the south-west DRC. This work, for the first time, constrains the maximum ages and source provenances of the successions in the CB. Following the Pan African orogens (ca. 650-530 Ma), extensive sequences of red beds were deposited by regional paleocurrents to the south. These are now best preserved (1 km thick) along the West Congo, Oubanguides, and Lufilian Belts surrounding the CB. Overlying a hiatus that represents most of the early-Paleozoic, is a 1 to 3 km thick succession of easterly derived glacial, and then continental sequences of the Karoo Supergroup. This succession records the first main episode of subsidence [10-15 m/Ma], interrupted by a phase of uplift that is likely related to far-field intracontinental deformation within Gondwana supercontinent during the Variscan and Cape Fold orogenies (ca. 250-330 Ma) at its peripheries. Detrital zircons from the lower Karoo diamictites are dated at 1.85-2.05 Ga and 1.37- 1.42 Ga, and thus sourced from Paleoproterozoic (Eburnean) and mid-Mesoproterozoic (Kibaran type-I) basement rocks in Uganda and Tanzania. Zircons from all the other successions in the CB date predominantly at 950-1050 Ma and 500-800 Ma. These are derived from sediment recycling of late-Mesoproterozoic (Kibaran type-II) and late- Neoproterozoic (Pan African) sources in the Central African Republic (CAR) and Chad. A distinct unconformity across the Karoo Supergroup in the CB is overlain by 500- 1000 m Jurassic-Cretaceous sequences, here named the Congo Supergroup. During initial rapid subsidence [10-50 m/Ma], late-Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) shallow marine to continental sedimentation attests to a short transgression of proto-Indian Ocean waters into the northern CB (at 160 m above present day sea-level), succeeded by widespread deposition of aeolian dunes that extend from the southern CB to the PB in South America. The youngest zircons from these aeolian sediments in the CB date at 190 Ma and 240-290 Ma, and most likely indicate the influence of extensive silicic volcanic ash derived from the proto-Andes along the south-western margin of Gondwana. Two superimposed mid-Cretaceous (Albian-Cenomanian) lacustrine sequences in the central CB record a succeeding, slower [10-15 m/Ma], phase of basin subsidence during the opening of the South Atlantic (ca. 85-135 Ma). These Cretaceous sequences are in turn truncated by another regional peneplanation surface covered by Cenozoic (Eocene) silcretized sands and alluviums of the Kalahari Group, only 50-250 m thick in the centre of the CB. Southward, on top of the Kalahari Plateau in the central desert region of north-west Botswana, new boreholes intercepted laterally equivalent condensed lacustrine carbonates and calcretes (20-50 m thick) covered by sands. These terrestrial sequences are key archives of late-Mesozoic – Cenozoic paleo-climate changes, yet they remain stratigraphically unresolved. This new analysis of the Phanerozoic continental basins of south-central Africa and their equivalents in South America, opens a fresh continental-scale window into how West Gondwana break-up and concomitant epeirogenic uplifts of Kalahari (>2 km) and Congo (>200 m) are linked to interactions between the lithosphere and mantle geodynamics, and how these processes likely affected global climate changes.