Sedimentology and Stratigraphy - 2025 entry

This module will provide the fundamentals of sedimentology, tracing the physical and sedimentary processes from source terrain to sedimentary rock. You will review depositional sedimentary environments and the observations required to infer these from sedimentary successions.  Practical work will include optical microscopy and hand specimen description. A central part of the module is a six-day field course to the Wessex Basin of southern England where your ability to describe and interpret sedimentary rocks in the field will be developed. You will also learn about the principal techniques used to date, correlate, and interpret the origin of sedimentary strata. In this module you will learn how fossils, stable isotopes, orbital cycles, rock magnetic properties and geophysical or geochemical logs can be combined to provide an integrated understanding of how we date rocks and how sediments are deposited. In addition, you will be introduced to sedimentary basins and the stratigraphic methods used to reconstruct their depositional histories.

1. Provide an understanding of sedimentary processes and resultant sedimentary products;

2. Allow an understanding of process-based sedimentology to be applied to recognise a range of siliciclastic and carbonate depositional environments from the rock record;

3. Introduce the principal classes of sedimentary basin, explore their origins and history of infill, and discuss how the interactions of tectonics, sea-level change, sediment supply and palaeoclimate affect the sediment infill;

4. Provide a grounding for petrographic descriptions and interpretations of siliciclastic and carbonate deposits;

5. Provide grounding in the principal techniques in stratigraphy, particularly isotope stratigraphy, cyclostratigraphy, geophysical log interpretation, and magnetostratigraphy and sequence stratigraphy.

Module Specific Skills and Knowledge:

1. Understand the principles of sedimentology covering weathering, fluid flows at the Earth’s surface, mechanisms of sediment erosion, transportation and deposition.

2. Describe and measure commonly occurring physical, chemical and biological sedimentary structures and interpret their process of formation and significance.

3. Be able to interpret depositional history and process from hand-specimen, thin section, field, borehole and seismic reflection datasets, and how this relates to sedimentary facies analysis and interpretation from a range of environments (e.g., fluvial, deltaic, shallow marine, deep marine, carbonate platforms, pelagic carbonates).

4. Describe and interpret the diagenetic features and history of clastic and carbonate sedimentary rocks based on transmitted light microscopy and hand specimen description.

5. Have a knowledge of sedimentary basins, their likely origins, and the major controls on their sedimentary infill.

6. Understand the basis for commonly used methods of stratal correlation and absolute/relative chronology, and be able to use these methods in a range of depositional settings, and understand their significance for reconstruction of planetary history. 

Personal and Key Transferable/ Employment Skills and Knowledge:

7. Manipulate, integrate and interpret a variety of time series data to arrive at reasoned explanations and predictions.

8. Develop report writing, field notebook keeping and teamwork skills.

Deferral – if you have been deferred for any assessment you will be expected to submit the relevant assessment. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be expected to submit the relevant assessment. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of referral will be capped at 40%.

Reading list for this module: