Sedimentation as a Three-Component System: Organic Carbon, Carbonate, Noncarbonate (Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences)

Sedimentation as a Three-Component System describes the most common styles of deposition in marine environments as they relate to sediment composition.Three components, organic matter, carbonate, and siliciclastic sediment, maysettle concurrently, but at different rates, intermixing on the sea floor to form a particular sediment composition. A change in the flux of one component is capable of relatively diluting or concentrating theother two components, which can be expressed in the characteristic ratio of organic carbon to carbonate in the resulting sediment. The basic concept of this book is to address organic carbon-carbonate associations in terms of depositional inputs and time spans. In addition, the three-component system describes organic carbon changes related to major facies transitions. Examples include models of the genesis of carbonaceous sediments, with their various laminated to bioturbated lithotypes, and numerical organic carbon prediction.