Sedimentation and Stratigraphy

Dr. Paul McCarthy, Assistant Professor, clastic sedimentology

Dr. Michael Whalen, Assistant Professor, carbonate sedimentology

Studies in sedimentary geology, in the Tectonics and Sedimentation Research Group, focus on Paleozoic through Tertiary carbonate and clastic stratigraphy and sedimentology in northern Alaska and western North America. A major focus of the research group during the late 1980's and early 1990's was a multidisciplinary study of the northeastern Brooks Range in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). This project (sponsored by the petroleum industry and the U.S. Department of Energy) involved many graduate students and several faculty members. Clastic studies were geared toward the evaluation of Late Paleozoic and Mesozoic paleogeography and depositional history of Arctic Alaska. Carbonate studies in ANWR focused on sequence and parasequence stratigraphy, conodont biostratigraphy, and diagenesis of the Carboniferous Lisburne Group. This research yielded interpretations of depositional history and paleogeography as well as the development of predictive facies models to aid in characterization of Lisburne petroleum reservoirs.

More recent work has employed sequence stratigraphy and combined conodont brachiopod biostratigraphy to evaluate patterns of Devonian isolated carbonate platform development in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Other current projects involve Devonian carbonate stratigraphy and sedimentology in east-central Alaska and mixed carbonate-siliciclastic sequence stratigraphy of the early Mesozoic subsurface of the North Slope of Alaska. These projects are being sponsored by the Petroleum Research Fund of the American Chemical Society and petroleum industry sponsors.

Click here for more information on possible graduate student research projects in sedimentary geology.

This site is maintained by Catherine.Hanks@gi.alaska.edu
Last updated on August 16, 2000