Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Palaeontology

Alberta’s Geological Riches

Jon Noad September 23, 2021

The Ram Falls near Nordegg, Alberta are formed by resistant shoreface sands of the Cardium Formation

Smoky Summer It has been a difficult summer in Alberta, with smoke from forest fires in British Columbia blanketing much of the southern part of the Province. However, this has not stopped me getting out into the field on a variety of projects and hikes, including a virtual field trip looking at the Cardium Formation and several in person trips to the beautiful Sheep River Provincial Park and surr ...[Read More]

Sediment in the deep ocean. Part 2: thermohaline currents that shape the seafloor

Ramon Lopez September 1, 2021

In Part 1 we differentiated between (1) shallow-marine tide-related currents from (2) purely gravitational sediment-laden currents. We could add that the former are periodic, as they are controlled by the effect of the Moon and Sun gravitational fields on the oceanic water as the Earth revolves, while the latter are sort of ‘spontaneous’ currents driven by the Earth gravitation field on sedi ...[Read More]

An online learning platform for cyclostratigraphy – www.cyclostratigraphy.org

Christian Zeeden, David De Vleeschouwer and Matthias Sinnesael August 2, 2021

Cyclostratigraphers aim to read and understand the effect of climate-driven orbital changes in the geological record through time. In doing so, they start from an important prerequisite: An imprint of insolation variations caused by Earth’s orbital eccentricity, obliquity and/or precession (Milankovitch forcing) can be preserved in the geological rock record. The new www.cyclostratigraphy.org webs ...[Read More]

Sedimentology – towards a disciplinary crisis?

Helmut Weissert July 5, 2021

This contribution adds to earlier articles on impact of global change on sedimentology and on the changing role of sedimentologists in a society moving towards a carbon-free energy future (e.g. Simmons and Davies, 2020, SSP BLOG). Sedimentology is a child of the Age of Petroleum. And, the success story of petroleum is closely linked to the equally successful story of gasoline-powered mobility. Let ...[Read More]