Rising from the Plains

Rising from the Plains
Author: John McPhee
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2011-04-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0374708509

Pulitzer Prize-winning author John McPhee continues his Annals of the Former World series about the geology of North America along the fortieth parallel with Rising from the Plains. This third volume presents another exciting geological excursion with an engaging account of life—past and present—in the high plains of Wyoming. Sometimes it is said of geologists that they reflect in their professional styles the sort of country in which they grew up. Nowhere could that be more true than in the life of a geologist born in the center of Wyoming and raised on an isolated ranch. This is the story of that ranch, soon after the turn of the twentieth century, and of David Love, the geologist who grew up there, at home with the composition of the high country in the way that someone growing up in a coastal harbor would be at home with the vagaries of the sea.

Ancient Wyoming

Ancient Wyoming
Author: Kirk Johnson
Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2016-05-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1936218186

Sponsored by a grant from the National Science Foundation to the Denver Museum of Natural History. Ever wondered what the ground below you was like millions of years ago? Merging paleontology, geology, and artistry, Ancient Wyoming illustrates scenes from the distant past and provides fascinating details on the flora and fauna of the past 300 million years. The book provides a unique look at Wyoming, both as it is today and as it was throughout ancient history—at times a vast ocean, a lush rain forest, and a mountain prairie.

Seismic Reservoir Modeling

Seismic Reservoir Modeling
Author: Dario Grana
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-05-04
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1119086205

Seismic reservoir characterization aims to build 3-dimensional models of rock and fluid properties, including elastic and petrophysical variables, to describe and monitor the state of the subsurface for hydrocarbon exploration and production and for CO2 sequestration. Rock physics modeling and seismic wave propagation theory provide a set of physical equations to predict the seismic response of subsurface rocks based on their elastic and petrophysical properties. However, the rock and fluid properties are generally unknown and surface geophysical measurements are often the only available data to constrain reservoir models far away from well control. Therefore, reservoir properties are generally estimated from geophysical data as a solution of an inverse problem, by combining rock physics and seismic models with inverse theory and geostatistical methods, in the context of the geological modeling of the subsurface. A probabilistic approach to the inverse problem provides the probability distribution of rock and fluid properties given the measured geophysical data and allows quantifying the uncertainty of the predicted results. The reservoir characterization problem includes both discrete properties, such as facies or rock types, and continuous properties, such as porosity, mineral volumes, fluid saturations, seismic velocities and density. Seismic Reservoir Modeling: Theory, Examples and Algorithms presents the main concepts and methods of seismic reservoir characterization. The book presents an overview of rock physics models that link the petrophysical properties to the elastic properties in porous rocks and a review of the most common geostatistical methods to interpolate and simulate multiple realizations of subsurface properties conditioned on a limited number of direct and indirect measurements based on spatial correlation models. The core of the book focuses on Bayesian inverse methods for the prediction of elastic petrophysical properties from seismic data using analytical and numerical statistical methods. The authors present basic and advanced methodologies of the current state of the art in seismic reservoir characterization and illustrate them through expository examples as well as real data applications to hydrocarbon reservoirs and CO2 sequestration studies.

Uplift of the Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming and Montana

Uplift of the Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming and Montana
Author: C. E. Whipkey
Publisher:
Total Pages: 28
Release: 1991
Genre: Geology
ISBN:

Fluvial and lacustrine-dominated clastic sedimentary rocks as thick as 1,800 m (6,000 ft) comprise the Paleocene Fort Union Formation and the Eocene Wasatch Formation of the western Powder River Basin in northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana. The systematic mineralogy of 45 samples of channel-fill sandstone from this sequence reflects the uplift and erosion of the Bighorn Mountains. Samples were collected to study vertical changes in the mineralogy of lower Tertiary sandstones adjacent to the Bighorn Mountains, lateral variations in the composition of the upper Paleocene Tongue River Member of the Fort Union Formation along the eastern front of the mountains, and variations in the composition of equivalent upper Paleocene sandstones of the central and western parts of the basin. Vertical changes in the mineralogy of a succession of Paleocene and Eocene sandstone units adjacent to the Bighorn Mountains most likely were produced by uplift and sequential erosion of the rocks that formerly overlaid the mountains. Uplift probably began in the middle Paleocene, during deposition of the Lebo Member of the Fort Union Formation, and continued into the Eocene. Differences in the mineralogy of the sandstone units along the western edge of the Powder River Basin that correspond to differences in the rock types now exposed along the crest of the Bighorn Mountains suggest that much of the erosional degradation of the Bighorn Mountains occurred during an early Tertiary tectonic episode. Lateral changes in the suite of unstable detrital grains within the Tongue River Member are compatible with facies and paleotransport studies that indicate a substantial eastward flux of detritus of early Tertiary age from the Bighorn Mountains into the central Powder River Basin.

History of Geomorphology and Quaternary Geology

History of Geomorphology and Quaternary Geology
Author: R. H. Grapes
Publisher: Geological Society of London
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2008
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9781862392557

These papers deal with various aspects of the histories of geomorphology and Quaternary geology in different parts of the world. They include: the origin of the term 'Quaternary', histories of ideas and debates relating to aspects of fluvial geomorphology, glacial geomorphology and glaciation, desert dunes and the geology of Australia, peneplains in China, a palaeo-Tokyo Bay in Japan, together with biographies of Charles Cotton, Valerija Čepulytė and Česlovas Pakuckas that highlight their respective contributions to the disciplines of geomorphology and Quaternary geology.

Stratigraphy and Paleolimnology of the Green River Formation, Western USA

Stratigraphy and Paleolimnology of the Green River Formation, Western USA
Author: Michael Elliot Smith
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2015-07-02
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9401799067

This volume presents a suite of detailed stratigraphic and sedimentologic investigations of the Eocene Green River Formation of Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, one of the world’s foremost terrestrial archives of lacustrine and alluvial deposition during the warmest portion of the early Cenozoic. Its twelve chapters encompass the rich and varied record of lacustrine stratigraphy, sedimentology, geochronology, geochemistry and paleontology. Chapters 2-9 provide detailed member-scale synthesis of Green River Formation strata within the Greater Green River, Fossil, Piceance Creek and Uinta Basins, while its final two chapters address its enigmatic evaporite deposits and ichnofossils at broad, interbasinal scale.

Plate Tectonics, Ophiolites, and Societal Significance of Geology

Plate Tectonics, Ophiolites, and Societal Significance of Geology
Author: John Wakabayashi
Publisher: Geological Society of America
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-09-24
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0813725526

"This volume honors Eldridge Moores, one of the most accomplished geologists of his generation. The volume starts with a summary of Moores' achievements, along with personal dedications and memories from people who knew him. Leading off the volume's 12 chapters of original scientific contributions is Moores' last published paper that presents an example of the Historical Contingency concept, which suggested that earlier subduction history may result in supra-subduction zone geochemical signatures for some magmas formed in non-subduction environments. Other chapters highlight the societal significance of geology, the petrogenesis of ophiolites, subduction zone processes, orogenic belt evolution, and other topics, covering the globe and intersecting with Moores' interests and influences"--

Annals of the Former World

Annals of the Former World
Author: John McPhee
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2000-06-15
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0374708460

The Pulitzer Prize-winning view of the continent, across the fortieth parallel and down through 4.6 billion years Twenty years ago, when John McPhee began his journeys back and forth across the United States, he planned to describe a cross section of North America at about the fortieth parallel and, in the process, come to an understanding not only of the science but of the style of the geologists he traveled with. The structure of the book never changed, but its breadth caused him to complete it in stages, under the overall title Annals of the Former World. Like the terrain it covers, Annals of the Former World tells a multilayered tale, and the reader may choose one of many paths through it. As clearly and succinctly written as it is profoundly informed, this is our finest popular survey of geology and a masterpiece of modern nonfiction. Annals of the Former World is the winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction.

New Caledonia

New Caledonia
Author: P. Maurizot
Publisher: Geological Society of London
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2020-07-09
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1786204665

This memoir summarizes the current knowledge of New Caledonia’s geology, geodynamic evolution, and mineral resources, based on published and unpublished information. It comprises 10 research papers, each addressing a particular geological assemblage or topic. After an introductory chapter, and a review of the published geodynamic models of evolution of the SW Pacific, chapters 3 to 5 focus on the main geological assemblages of Grande Terre: the Pre-Late Cretaceous basement terranes, the Late Cretaceous to Eocene cover, and the Eocene subduction-obduction complex, one of the largest and best-preserved in the world. Chapter 6 is devoted to the Loyalty Islands and Ridge. Chapter 7 deals with the mostly terrestrial post-obduction units including regolith. Chapter 8 deals with palaeobiogeography and discuss plausible scenarios of biotic evolution. Chapters 9 and 10 provide an comprehensive review of New Caledonia’s mineral resources. The volume will interest stratigraphers, sedimentologists, marine geologists, palaeontologists, palaeogeographers, igneous and metamorphic petrologists, geochemists, geochronologists, and specialists in tectonics, geodynamic evolution, regolith, ophiolites, and economic geology.