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Title: Alluvial fans and fan deltas: a guide to exploration for oil and gas

Book ·
OSTI ID:7121444

This volume is a result of a series of lectures presented to an oil company in 1985 and is intended for an audience of explorationists. Material is presented in the order in which an exploration program might proceed in a frontier area. The volume is divided into six chapters that cover definitions and tectonic setting, alluvial-fan morphology, processes and facies on alluvial fans, geomorphic controls, effects of extrinsic controls (chiefly tectonism and climate) on alluvial-fan sequences, and diagenesis. Previously published black-and-white line drawings from studies of modern and ancient fans and fan deltas provide almost all the illustrative material; only one photograph is included, an aerial view of fans in part of Death Valley. The authors emphasize the complexity and variability of fan deposits and their resultant architecture. Although the volume contains a useful review of previous literature, it contains little new material, and it is remarkably lacking subsurface examples and data for a volume intended for the exploration community. In addition, fan deltas receive only brief attention; the overwhelming part of the book is devoted to alluvial fans. The volume will be of interest to those involved in studies of modern and ancient alluvial-fan deposits. 165 references.

OSTI ID:
7121444
Resource Relation:
Other Information: From review by Tor H. Nilsen, Applied Earth Technology, Redwood City, CA, in Geology, Vol. 16, No. 7(Jul 1988)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English