GeoSed - Associazione Italiana per la Geologia del Sedimentario
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra dell'Università di Siena
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53100 Siena
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Table of Contents


Vol. 9 - 2010

Vol. 8 - 2009

Vol. 7 - 2008
SP 1 - 2008

Vol. 6 - 2007
Vol. 5 - 2006
Vol. 4 - 2005
Vol. 3 - 2004
Vol. 2 - 2003
Vol. 1 - 2001-2002

Notes for Authors
(PDF - 80 kb)



GeoActa Special Publication 1 2008


Acquisto online

GeoActa
an international Journal of Earth Sciences


Alessandro Amorosi, Bilal Haq, Luisa Sabato

Preface



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The workshop “Thirty Years of Sequence Stratigraphy: Applications, Limits and Prospects” was held in Bari (Italy) in October 2006, organized by GeoSed (the Italian Association of Sedimentary Geologists) and by the Department of Geology and Geophysics (Bari University), and sponsored by Bari University, Regione Puglia and Provincia di Bari. The workshop was attended by about 90 participants, with 25 scientific communications, and was an attempt to bring together Italian sequence stratigraphers to discuss their research. In addition, a research group also intrigued the audience with a presentation of the potential application of sequence stratigraphy on Mars.
Sequence stratigraphic models which have served the exploration efforts very well in both pre-drill predictions and down-stream field development entered a new phase a decade ago. These concepts are being applied at ever-increasing higher resolution and in multiple settings, i.e., passive Atlantic-type margins, active margins, margins without point-sourced sediments, and in deep-water and non-marine systems. Thus, much of the new research in the past several years has been focused on higher resolution studies. Current economic imperatives mean that the industry will have to further increase its exploration efforts in deeper water offshore (and in older strata on land). Thus, there is a new urgency to understand the seismic facies and geomorphological attributes of the basin floor beyond the foot of the slope. Here, again, sequence stratigraphic models are helping in the prediction of reservoir, source and seal facies (e.g., channel fills, sediment waves, overbank spillover and crevasse splays, debris flows, etc.).
Complementary to the use of sequence stratigraphic models is the utility of the global cycle chart which allows chronostratigraphic synthesis and facilitates first-order global correlations. It also allows the exploitation of global depositional trends as an effective exploration tool. Examples of the latter include, prediction of: the duration and magnitude of unconformities, duration and magnitude of condensed sections, extent of the vertical and lateral migration of facies and the severity of the subaerial exposure during lowstand times. Duration of the exposure to erosive and corrosive elements is of particular predictive utility in evaluation of reservoir quality in carbonates. Recent effort to synthesize the eustatic variations in the Palaeozoic is also a step in the right direction.
This special issue of GeoActa is a collection of papers presented at the GeoSed workshop in Bari and some invited contributions. The volume does not claim to present a complete state-of-the-art of sequence stratigraphy in Italy, but offers some updated examples of the application of sequence-stratigraphic concepts from a variety of geological settings.
The volume is organized into three sections. The first section is devoted to the sequence stratigraphy of the Quaternary deposits. Over the last decade, an explosion of international research on the sequence stratigraphy of Quaternary subsurface and outcrop successions has produced new understanding of the stratigraphic architecture of alluvial and coastal plains and its impact on human society. Thus, half of the fourteen papers in this volume deal with this topic, from both onshore and offshore areas. The paper by Amorosi from the Po River Plain focuses on the use of transgressive surfaces as a powerful tool for basinwide correlations and delineation of aquifer geometries from alluvial-fan to coastal-plain settings. Sabato and Tropeano (from a Holocene coastal alluvial-fan system in Calabria) and Cilumbriello et al., (from middle-late Pleistocene marine terrace deposits of the Taranto Gulf) discuss the complex interplay between tectonics and sea-level changes, showing how stratigraphic architecture from uplifted areas may differ significantly from that predicted by traditional sequence-stratigraphic models. Amorosi et al. and Milli et al. present detailed facies architecture of two incised-valley fills developed during the last glacial/interglacial cycle, from modern Arno and Tevere delta plains, respectively. On the basis of very high-resolution seismic profiles from the Adriatic Sea, Zecchin shows the Holocene sequence-stratigraphic architecture offshore of Venice, while Verdicchio and Trincardi test a sequence-stratigraphic approach to late Quaternary slope depositional systems in the Bari Canyon.
The second section includes six examples of sequence-stratigraphic studies from carbonate, siliciclastic, and evaporite pre-Quaternary depositional systems. New perspectives on the sequence stratigraphy of evaporites, from the Apennines to Sicily, are explored by Roveri et al., who for the first time apply this approach to the world’s youngest saline giant, formed around 6 Ma ago in the Mediterranean basin during the Messinian salinity crisis. Longhitano interprets the combined influence of tectonic uplift and sea-level changes to be the major controlling factor of facies architecture within a Pliocene lowstand prograding complex of Southern Apennines. The second section also contains four papers that discuss the sequence-stratigraphic interpretation of carbonate successions. D’Argenio et al. summarize fifteen years of high-resolution cyclostratigraphic work on Cretaceous carbonate successions of shallow-water origin from Central and Southern Apennines, showing the genetic relationships with the Milankovitch orbital periodicities. From the coeval successions of Apulia, Spalluto further discusses how stratigraphic architecture of carbonate successions may reveal distinctive cyclic changes, falling in the Milankovitch band. Simone and Carannante re-examine the sedimentary evolution of Cretaceous carbonate successions from selected areas of the Central-Southern Apennines and Northwestern Sardinia, and present the palaeo-environmental history of a sector of the peri-Tethyan region during the Cretaceous. Brandano and Civitelli illustrate a Miocene tropical-subtropical carbonate ramp from the Central Apennines, showing the evolution of a bryomol carbonate factory independent of water depth.
The last section includes just one paper, which represents a stimulating starting point for an unusual sequence-stratigraphic approach. Here, Pondrelli et al. explore new ground for the application of sequence-stratigraphic concepts. Their paper on the sequence stratigraphy of the Eberswalde fan-delta complex from the surface of Mars is an intriguing case of planetary geology.
The geographical distribution of the case studies, which covers a variety of depositional settings and regions, is presented in Figure 1.
Finally, we would like to thank the international panel of colleagues and friends who contributed to improvement of this volume, devoting a significant amount of their time through their careful reviews. The editors extend their sincere thanks to the following referees:

Alessandro Amorosi – University of Bologna, Italy
Vic Baker – University of Arizona, Tucson, U.S.A.
Serge Berné – University of Perpignan, France
Riccardo Bersezio – University of Milan, Italy
Helmut Brückner – University of Marburg, Germany
Antonio Cattaneo – Ifremer, Brest, France
Bruno d’Argenio – University of Naples, Italy
Mike Field – US Geological Survey, Menlo Park, U.S.A.
Martin Gibling – Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
Francisco Lobo Sánchez – University of Granada, Spain
Daniele Masetti – University of Trieste, Italy
Salvatore Milli – University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Italy
Emiliano Mutti – University of Parma, Italy
Martin Pedley – University of Hull, U.K.
Luis Pomar – University of the Balearic Islands, Mallorca, Spain
Cai Puigdefabregas – NorskHydro, Bergen, Norway
Franco Ricci Lucchi – University of Bologna, Italy
Marco Roveri – University of Parma, Italy
Giovanni Rusciadelli – University of Chieti, Italy
Lucia Simone – University of Naples, Italy
Robert Scott – University of Tulsa, USA
Peter Skelton – University of Bristol, U.K.
Andrea Sposato – C.N.R., Rome, Italy
André Strasser – University of Fribourg, Switzerland
David Uličný– Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
César Viseras – University of Granada, Spain