Atlas of Microbial Mat Features Preserved within the Siliciclastic Rock Record

The first, full account of mats in terrigenous clastics

Juergen Schieber (Edited by), Pradip K. Bose (Edited by), P.G. Eriksson (Edited by), Santanu Banerjee (Edited by), Subir Sarkar (Edited by), Wladyslaw Altermann (Edited by), Octavian Catuneanu (Edited by)

9780444528599, Elsevier Science

Hardback, published 14 August 2007

324 pages
29.7 x 21 x 2.4 cm, 1.48 kg

"The results summarized in this book have already helped to open up an exciting avenue in the study of microbial evolution, and the atlas itself will undoubtedly serve as an invaluable aid to researchers in the field." --Mike Tice, Texas A & M University, writing in the Journal of Sedimentary Research

Drawing on a combination of modern occurrences and likely ancient counterparts, this atlas is a treatise of mat-related sedimentary features that one may expect to see in ancient terrigenous clastic sedimentary successions. By combining modern and ancient examples, the connection is made to likely formative processes and the utilization of these features in the interpretation of ancient sedimentary rocks.

1. Prologue: an introduction to microbial mats
2. Structures left by modern microbial mats in their host sediments
3. Classification of structures left by microbial mats in their host sediments
4. Mat features in sandstones
5. Microbial mats on muddy substrates – examples of possible sedimentary features and underlying processes
6. Discussion of some problems: unusual features and the importance of terminology
7. Examples of stratigraphic units bearing outstanding mat features
8. New developments in research on microbial mats
9. Palaeoenvironmental and chronological relationships of mat-related features, and sequence stratigraphic implications of microbial mats
10. Conclusions

Subject Areas: Petroleum technology [THFP], Palaeontology [RBX], Limnology [freshwater RBKF], Oceanography [seas RBKC], Stratigraphy [RBGH], Historical geology [RBGF], Geology & the lithosphere [RBG], Biology, life sciences [PS]