SEPM Business Meeting/Luncheon
Death of a Sequence Boundary and Revelations from the Cretaceous Interior Seaway
of North America
Date: Tuesday, 13 April
Time: 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Fee: $35
Location: JW Marriott New Orleans
Dr. Janok P. Bhattacharya is the Robert E. Sheriff Professor of Sequence Stratigraphy at the University of Houston. His research interests include deltaic sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy, the local control of structure on stratigraphy and reservoir architecture of clastic depositional systems.
He received his B.Sc. in 1981 from Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. Following his
bachelor’s degree, he worked at ESSO Resources in Calgary before completing his Ph.D. in 1989 from McMaster University, Canada. Following a postdoc at the Alberta Geological Survey in Edmonton, Janok worked for the Bureau of Economic Geology at Austin, ARCO Research in
Plano, Texas, and the University of Texas at Dallas before joining the University of
Houston in the fall of 2005.
He is an AAPG Grover Murray Distinguished Educator, AAPG Distinguished Lecturer and AAPG SW Section Distinguished Educator. He is an associate editor for the Journal of Sedimentary Research and has also served as associate editor for AAPG Bulletin. He has authored or co-authored over 100 abstracts and over 45 technical papers. He also co-edited SEPM Special Publication 83 titled River Deltas: Concepts, Models and Examples. He is an active member of AAPG, SEPM, GSA and IAS.
Sequence stratigraphy solved the basic problem that genetically related but different lithofacies were routinely assigned to different lithostratigraphic units defined by arbitrary vertical and horizontal cutoffs. Given that “modern” sequence stratigraphy is now over 20 years old it is timely to revisit the issue of how well sequence stratigraphy actually applies to ancient rock successions.
Use of detailed facies architectural studies, combined with Wheeler analysis
and recent modeling studies, point to the uncertainty in dating of fluvial terrace deposits and questions the assumed chronostratigraphic significance that is required in defining many so-called sequence boundaries.
The origin of sequences remains controversial. Although a glacio-eustatic origin for Cretaceous sequences is still highly debated, Plio-Pleistocene glacio-eustatic falls of sea-level are commonly prolonged and irregular, whereas rises are typically very short lived. Sequence boundaries, formed during such prolonged falls are thus less chronostratigraphically significant than the transgressive surfaces formed during rapid rises.
Tectonic unconformities are very significant in the Cretaceous Western Interior. Tectonics produces differential lithospheric deformation, which results in angular unconformities. In the Cretaceous Interior Seaway of North America, such unconformities are expressed by enhanced erosion in basin distal facies that lack evidence for fluvial erosion. In the fluvial realm, such tectonic discontinuities are indicated by changes in paleocurrent orientations as well as provenance changes.
Although sequence stratigraphy provides a powerful methodology and theoretical framework for correlating and understanding the evolution of stratigraphic successions in the context of changing accommodation, many of the original defining characteristics cannot be proven, such as the requirement that sequence boundaries be chronostratigraphic. However, no matter what type of sequence stratigraphy one prefers, it is key to recognize in all cases that sequence stratigraphy is, at its heart, the re-ordering, correlation and sometimes renaming of stratigraphic units on the basis of bounding discontinuities and their correlative surfaces, as opposed to the arbitrary lithofacies–oriented approach using broad facies “shazams” or arbitrary cutoffs, such as is used in traditional lithostratigraphy.
SEPM President’s Reception and Awards Ceremony
Date: Tuesday, 13 April
Time: 7:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m.
Location: JW Marriott New Orleans
SEPM President Steve Driese invites you to an evening of celebration to honor the 2010 award winners of SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology) and the perfect place to network and visit with colleagues. The Twenhofel Medal, the highest award of SEPM given in recognition of a career of outstanding contributions to sedimentary geology, will be presented to William Galloway. SEPM Honorary Membership, given for both scientific contributions and service to the society will be awarded to Rick Sorg.
The other science award recipients are: David Piper, who will receive the Francis P. Shepard Medal in recognition of excellence in marine geology; Jere Lipps, the Raymond C. Moore Medal in recognition of excellence in paleontology; Donald Swift, the Pettijohn Medal for excellence in sedimentology; and Shanan Peters, the Wilson Award for excellence in sedimentary geology by a younger scientist.
SEPM also will honor the recipients of the Best Paper Awards for 2008 in both of our journals, Journal of Sedimentary Research and PALAIOS. SEPM will also recognize the Best Presentation Awards from the 2009 Annual Meeting in Denver. The Best Oral Presentation Awardees presented “Palaeozoic Carbonates from the Subsurface Barents Sea Part II: Paleokarst Distribution and Heterogeneity from 3-D Seismic Data” by David W. Hunt, Arnout Colpaert, Florian Miquelis, Brita Graham-Wall, Gaynor Fisher and Anthony Avu. The Best Poster Presentation is a two-way tie, going to “Carbonate Pore Type Classification in Tengiz Field, Republic of Kazakhstan” by Jeroen Kenter and Mark Skalinski, and “Integrating Outcrop and Subsurface Data
to Define Regional and Reservoir-Scale Patterns in Prograding Systems, Lewis Shale and Fox Hills Sandstone, Wyoming” by David Pyles and Roger Slatt.
As always, SEPM will also recognize the members of the 2010 Annual Meeting Organizing Committee, without whom the meeting could not take place, and SEPM Foundation Student Grant recipients. The reception will begin at 7:00 p.m., with cocktails (available at cash bars) and substantial hors d’oeuvres. The awards ceremony will start at 7:30 p.m.
SEPM Research Symposium: Autogenic and Allogenic Controls on Sedimentary Successions:
Modern and Ancient, Clastic and Carbonate
Date: Tuesday, 13 April
Time: 8:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. and 1:15 p.m.–5:00 p.m.
Location: Room 343/344/345
Co-chairs: C. Paola, M. Perlmutter and M. Blum
Stratigraphy records include both externally forced (allogenic) and internally generated (autogenic) signals. For a long time it was assumed that the two could be readily separated, with allogenic effects dominating at longer space and time scales. Several recent developments have made the situation more interesting: (1) researchers are increasingly interested in extracting high-frequency external signals, especially climate, from stratigraphic records; (2) recent research has expanded the range of effects that autogenic processes can produce, and
extended their range to surprisingly long space and time scales; (3) the discovery of similarity in autogenic processes has opened the possibility that their stratigraphic effects may be scale independent over some range of scales; and (4) recent work suggests that autogenic and allogenic processes can interact strongly.
This session was motivated by developments such as these but is open to any innovative research on the interaction of autogenic and allogenic processes in stratigraphy.
SEPM Field Trips and Short Courses
Date: Pre- and Post-Convention
Be sure to check out the great array of trips and courses available for this meeting. Students, be sure to check out the Sequence Stratigraphy Course for Graduate Students (sponsored by ExxonMobil) and the discounted student seats available for each course and trip (sponsored by several companies).
