Office of Academic Affairs
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Bhopal

Earth and Environmental Sciences

EES 313: Sedimentology and Principles of Stratigraphy Laboratory (1)

Prerequisites (Desirable): EES 307 either credited or registered

Learning Objectives:

Approximately 75% of the Earth's surface is covered by sedimentary rocks. This course will help students learn to identify and characterize both clastic and chemical sedimentary rocks at macro- and microscopic scales. Besides, students will be introduced to the study of sedimentary textures, structures, and paleocurrent and facies analyses as tools for environmental reconstructions.

Course Contents:

Study of Hand Specimens:
Megascopic examination of hand specimens of sediments/soils and sedimentary rocks; Hand specimen study and analyses of photographs of primary, secondary (chemical), biogenic and organo-sedimentary structures.

Textural Analyses of Sediments:
Size analyses, plotting of grain size data and statistical analyses, grain shape, orientation, packing properties.

Paleocurrent Analysis:
Exercises using sets of directional data to understand spatial variation in vectorial data.

Study of Thin Sections:
Study of thin sections of clastic sedimentary rocks; Arenites, arkoses, and wackes; Study of grain mounts of dense minerals; Study of thin sections and stained thin sections of carbonate sedimentary rocks.

Suggested Readings :

  1. Lindholm, R. C., 1987, A Practical Approach to Sedimentology, Springer.
  2. Tucker, M. E., 2011, Sedimentary Rocks in the Field - A practical guide, Wiley-Blackwell.
  3. Adams, A. E., Mackenzie, W. S., and Guilford, C., 2015, Atlas of Sedimentary Rocks Under the Microscope, Prentice Hall.

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