This course will cover content relating to the processes and deposits of sedimentary systems. The course also covers how sedimentary deposits become rocks, as well as the identification of sedimentary environments from lithified (rock) and unlithified deposits. The course develops advanced field skills in sedimentology.

Two classes per week for 5 weeks (held as 3-hour workshop). Local field classes.

EARTH4023 - Sedimentary Geology

EARTH4024 - Stratigraphy

50% weekly online tests/set exercises.

50% poster

The aim of this course is to introduce students, in classroom and field settings, to the principles of sedimentary depositional environments (clastic and carbonate), covering topics from processes within and the deposit of sedimentary systems. Students will develop skills in understanding the stratigraphic expression and identification of sedimentary depositional environments and how they may vary through time and space to fill sedimentary basins. The course will develop skills in the application of concepts to societal challenges relating to resources and the affects of the Anthropocene.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Analyse key characteristics (facies) that allow the interpretation of depositional environments of sediments;

■ Examine key processes and depositional characteristics for a suite of depositional environments and determine basin fill histories and the role of tectonics in forming sedimentary basins;

■ Explain the controls on sediment diagenesis, their influence on porosity and permeability, and their importance in industrial applications;

■ Critically evaluate the application of sequence stratigraphy in basin analysis;

■ Synthesise and interpret sedimentary data in the context of graphical logs in the field and laboratory;

■ Develop and apply skills in GIS to analyse sedimentary systems in a basin

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.