Evolution and Geological Significance of Larger Benthic Foraminifera

Evolution and Geological Significance of Larger Benthic Foraminifera is a unique, comprehensive reference work on the larger benthic foraminifera. This second edition is substantially revised, including extensive re-analysis of the most recent work on Cenozoic forms. It provides documentation of the biostratigraphic ranges and paleoecological significance of the larger foraminifera, which is essential for understanding many major oil-bearing sedimentary basins. In addition, it offers a palaeogeographic interpretation of the shallow marine late Paleozoic to Cenozoic world. Marcelle K. BouDagher-Fadel collects and significantly adds to the information already published on the larger benthic foraminifera. New research in the Far East, the Middle East, South Africa, Tibet and the Americas has provided fresh insights into the evolution and palaeographic significance of these vital reef-forming forms. With the aid of new and precise biostratigraphic dating, she presents revised phylogenies and ranges of the larger foraminifera. The book is illustrated throughout, with examples of different families and groups at the generic levels. Key species are discussed and their biostratigraphic ranges are depicted in comparative charts, which can be found a

Evolution and Geological Significance of Larger Benthic Foraminifera

Evolution and Geological Significance of Larger Benthic Foraminifera is a unique, comprehensive reference work on the larger benthic foraminifera. This second edition is substantially revised, including extensive re-analysis of the most recent work on Cenozoic forms. It provides documentation of the biostratigraphic ranges and paleoecological significance of the larger foraminifera, which is essential for understanding many major oil-bearing sedimentary basins. In addition, it offers a palaeogeographic interpretation of the shallow marine late Paleozoic to Cenozoic world. Marcelle K. BouDagher-Fadel collects and significantly adds to the information already published on the larger benthic foraminifera. New research in the Far East, the Middle East, South Africa, Tibet and the Americas has provided fresh insights into the evolution and palaeographic significance of these vital reef-forming forms. With the aid of new and precise biostratigraphic dating, she presents revised phylogenies and ranges of the larger foraminifera. The book is illustrated throughout, with examples of different families and groups at the generic levels. Key species are discussed and their biostratigraphic ranges are depicted in comparative charts, which can be found a

Carbonate drowning successions of the Bird's Head, Indonesia

Drowning unconformities and their related strata are important records of key tectonic and environmental events throughout Earth’s history. In the eastern Bird’s Head region of West Papua, Indonesia, Middle Miocene strata record a drowning unconformity present over much of western New Guinea, including several offshore basins. This study records platform carbonate strata overlain by mixed shallow- and deep-water units containing benthic and planktonic foraminiferal assemblages in several outcrop locations across the eastern Bird’s Head region. These heterolithic beds are interpreted as drowning successions that are terminated by a drowning unconformity. We define a succession exposed along the Anggrisi River in the eastern Bird’s Head as a stratotype for carbonate platform drowning in the Bird’s Head, analogous to similar faunal turnovers identified in its offshore basins. Detailed facies analyses, biostratigraphic dating, and paleoenvironmental interpretations using larger benthic and planktonic foraminifera collected from the Anggrisi River succession help to constrain the drowning event recorded onshore as beginning in the Burdigalian and ending in the Serravallian. The cause of platform drowning in the Bird’s Head is attributed to a reduction in the rates of carbonate accumulation due to the presence of excess nutrients in the depositional environment. Already foundering carbonate platforms due to environmental deterioration were left vulnerable to submergence and eventually succumbed to drowning. Low rates of carbonate production were outpaced by the rate of relative sea-level rise caused by high-amplitude oscillations in global glacio-eustatic sea-level change and/or regional tectonic subsidence. The duration of the drowning event across the entire Bird’s Head region is interpreted to have lasted a duration of approximately 9.5 My, between 18.0 and 8.58 Ma. This has implications when interpreting timings of sedimentary basin fill across western New Guinea and in other basins where carbonate platform drowning is recorded

Age constraints on intra-formational unconformities in Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous carbonates in northeast Turkey; geodynamic and hydrocarbon implications

Upper Jurassic-lowermost Cretaceous carbonate build-ups are imaged on seismic data in the Black Sea. They form important, untested, hydrocarbon reservoirs that are the focus of active exploration. Outcrop analogues to these build-ups around the Black Sea contain a series of subaerial exposure surfaces. The hiatuses associated with a number of these subaerial exposure surfaces have been dated in a well exposed Callovian or Upper Oxfordian to Barremian shallow-water inner platform carbonate succession (the Berdiga Formation) in the Eastern Pontides using strontium isotope stratigraphy and foraminiferal biostratigraphy. They span the latest Kimmeridgian to Tithonian or Berriasian, and the Hauterivian to Barremian. Less well constrained, but broadly contemporaneous stratigraphic gaps in multiple successions around the Black Sea provide additional insights and point to a regional driving mechanism. The timing of hiatus formation does not correspond to periods of eustatic lowstand. It does coincide, however, with Late Tithonian to Berriasian and Hauterivian to Early Aptian episodes of rifting in the Greater Caucasus Basin, located farther to the north. Thus, it is possible that subaerial exposure was caused by rift flank uplift during periods of regional extension. Uplift due to slab break off is discounted as a control because it post-dates (rather than pre-dates) locally developed Kimmeridgian magmatism. Rift-flank uplift is likely to have also affected carbonate build-ups on the intervening rift shoulders of the eastern Black Sea, the Shatskiy Ridge and the Mid Black Sea High. At outcrop, subaerial exposure is often associated with karstification and secondary porosity development. Similar processes may have occurred in the offshore helping to enhance the reservoir quality of these exploration targets

A new upper Paleogene to Neogene stratigraphy for Sarawak and Labuan in northwestern Borneo:Paleogeography of the eastern Sundaland margin

The Miri Zone in Sarawak contains thick Paleogene to Neogene sedimentary successions that extend offshore into the Sarawak Basin (Balingian and Central Luconia Provinces) and Sabah Basin. Exploration offshore has shown the Sarawak Basin in the South China Sea contains major hydrocarbon reservoirs. The sediments on land are age equivalents of the offshore successions and can be used to provide insights into their sedimentological and stratigraphic relations. However, because the rocks are found in mountainous regions covered by dense rainforest much of the stratigraphy in the Miri Zone is poorly known, as are timings and causes of major unconformities in the region that are essential for understanding the tectonic history, basin development, and sedimentary pathways. In this study we integrate fieldwork, U–Pb zircon dating, biostratigraphy, and light and heavy mineral analyses to present a revised stratigraphy for the region as well as paleogeographic maps, including major paleo-river systems for the main sedimentary basins. Rocks studied include parts of the Cretaceous to Eocene deep marine Rajang Group, fluvial to marginal marine sediments of the Oligocene to Early Miocene Tatau, Buan, Nyalau and Setap Shale Formations, and the Miocene sediments which are assigned to the Balingian, Begrih and Liang Formations in the Mukah-Balingian province, and the Belait Formation on Labuan. There is still much debate about the timings or even existence of some important unconformities offshore, such as the Middle Miocene Unconformity (MMU) and Deep Regional Unconformity (DRU). We propose to avoid the ambiguous time-based terminology that has been used for different events by different authors. Instead, our results from the on-land stratigraphy show two main unconformities in northern Sarawak; one at c. 37 Ma (Rajang Unconformity), marking the change from deep marine to fluvial – marginal marine sedimentation, and another one at c. 17 Ma (Nyalau Unconformity) which is related to widespread uplift in Borneo and changing river systems

Timing of India-Asia collision: Geological, biostratigraphic, and palaeomagnetic constraints

A range of ages have been proposed for the timing of India-Asia collision; the range to some extent reflects different definitions of collision and methods used to date it. In this paper we discuss three approaches that have been used to constrain the time of collision: the time of cessation of marine facies, the time of the first arrival of Asian detritus on the Indian plate, and the determination of the relative positions of India and Asia through time. In the Qumiba sedimentary section located south of the Yarlung Tsangpo suture in Tibet, a previous work has dated marine facies at middle to late Eocene, by far the youngest marine sediments recorded in the region. By contrast, our biostratigraphic data indicate the youngest marine facies preserved at this locality are 50.6–52.8 Ma, in broad agreement with the timing of cessation of marine facies elsewhere throughout the region. Double dating of detrital zircons from this formation, by U-Pb and fission track methods, indicates an Asian contribution to the rocks thus documenting the time of arrival of Asian material onto the Indian plate at this time and hence constraining the time of India-Asia collision. Our reconstruction of the positions of India and Asia by using a compilation of published palaeomagnetic data indicates initial contact between the continents in the early Eocene. We conclude the paper with a discussion on the viability of a recent assertion that collision between India and Asia could not have occurred prior to ∼35 Ma

Provenance of Oligocene–Miocene sedimentary rocks in the Cuu Long and Nam Con Son basins, Vietnam and early history of the Mekong River

The offshore Cuu Long (CLB) and Nam Con Son (NCSB) basins of SE Vietnam are two important Cenozoic hydrocarbon-bearing basins in the southern South China Sea (SCS), which can contribute to understanding the evolution of major SE Asian river systems, in particular the Mekong River. The Oligocene to Early Miocene basin fill of the Cuu Long Basin is dominated by sediment sourced locally from the Da Lat Zone basement on land. Sandstones have abundant Cretaceous detrital zircons and heavy mineral assemblages dominated by apatite and epidote. The Bach Ho Unconformity at c. 16 to 20.5 Ma marks a major provenance change and the overlying Middle to Late Miocene Con Son and Dong Nai formations were sourced by a large river system, which drained Indochina or even the Himalaya, resembling the present-day Mekong River. These formations have heterogeneous detrital zircon populations dominated by Triassic ages and zircon–rutile–tourmaline-dominated heavy mineral assemblages. The Oligocene Cau and Early Miocene Dua formations of the Nam Con Son Basin have a similar provenance to the CLB Con Son and Dong Nai formations, indicating a comparable drainage history of a large proto-Chao Phraya. At the Dua Unconformity at c. 15.4 to 17 Ma the Indochina provenance signature changes to a predominant Sibumasu signature. The early Mekong River evolution is suggested to have involved two river systems. A proto-Mekong 1 initially filled the CLB, while at the same time a proto-Chao Phraya River with a capture area into the Himalaya filled the Malay Basin and/or the NCSB. At the end of the Early Miocene drainage was completely reorganised, and the proto-Mekong 1 captured the headwaters of the proto-Chao Phraya and became the proto-Mekong 2, while the NCSB was filled by sediment from the Malay–Thai Peninsula. This major change marks a very important drainage reorganisation in the southern SCS region

Biostratigraphic and Geological Significance of Planktonic Foraminifera, Updated Second Edition

The role of fossil planktonic foraminifera as markers for biostratigraphical zonation and correlation underpins most drilling of marine sedimentary sequences and is key to hydrocarbon exploration. Biostratigraphic and Geological Significance of Planktonic Foraminifera unifies existing biostratigraphic schemes and provides an improved correlation reflecting regional biogeographies. It presents a comprehensive analysis of existing data on fossil planktonic foraminifera genera and their phylogenetic evolution in time and space. Coverage includes presentation and discussion of rarely studied thin sections of planktonic foraminifera, allowing for new developments in dating planktonic foraminifera in carbonates and expanding their usefulness in hydrocarbon exploration

Biostratigraphic and Geological Significance of Planktonic Foraminifera, Updated Second Edition

The role of fossil planktonic foraminifera as markers for biostratigraphical zonation and correlation underpins most drilling of marine sedimentary sequences and is key to hydrocarbon exploration. Biostratigraphic and Geological Significance of Planktonic Foraminifera unifies existing biostratigraphic schemes and provides an improved correlation reflecting regional biogeographies. It presents a comprehensive analysis of existing data on fossil planktonic foraminifera genera and their phylogenetic evolution in time and space. Coverage includes presentation and discussion of rarely studied thin sections of planktonic foraminifera, allowing for new developments in dating planktonic foraminifera in carbonates and expanding their usefulness in hydrocarbon exploration