A Color Atlas of Carbonate Sediments and Rocks Under the Microscope

More than half of the worlds petroleum is found in carbonate rocks for example, in the Middle East, the former USSR and in North America. These rocks show a bewildering diversity of grains and textures, due in part to the wealth of different fossil organisms that have contributed to carbonate sedimentation, and in part to a wide variety of diagenetic processes that can radically modify textures and obscure the depositional fabric. Careful petrographic study with a polarising microscope is a key element of any study of carbonate sediments as a companion to field or core logging and as a necessary precursor to geochemical analysis. This atlas, which illustrates in full color a range of features not attempted in any general textbook, is designed as a laboratory manual to keep beside the microscope, and as an aid to identifying grain types and textures in carbonates. It will appeal alike to under-graduate and graduate students and to professionals in teaching institutions, research laboratories and industry. A Color Atlas of Rocks and Minerals in Thin Section W. S. MacKenzie and A. E. Adams