The Cenozoic carbonate systems of Australasia are the product of a diverse assortment of depositional and post-depositional processes, reflecting the interplay of eustasy, tectonics (both plate and local scale), climate, and evolutionary trends that influenced their initiation and development. These systems, which comprise both land-attached and isolated platforms, were initiated in a wide variety of tectonic settings (including rift, passive margin, and arc-related) and under warm and cool-water conditions where, locally, siliciclastic input affected their development. The lithofacies, biofacies, growth morphology, diagenesis, and hydrocarbon reservoir potential of these systems are products of these varying influences. The studies reported in this volume range from syntheses of tectonic and depositional factors influencing carbonate deposition and controls on reservoir formation and petroleum system development, to local studies from the South China Sea, Indonesia, Kalimantan, Malaysia, the Marion Plateau, the Philippines, Western Australia, and New Caledonia that incorporate outcrop and subsurface data, including 3-D seismic imaging of carbonate platforms and facies, to understand the interplay of factors affecting the development of these systems under widely differing circumstances. This volume will be of importance to geoscientists interested in the variability of Cenozoic carbonate systems and the factors that controlled their formation, and to those wanting to understand the range of potential hydrocarbon reservoirs discovered in these carbonates and the events that led to favorable reservoir and trap development.

Although the long-term evolution of shallow-water carbonate platforms has been the subject of numerous studies during the last decades, their driving processes and the potential interactions with geodynamic activity are still deeply debated. The Mozambique Channel, located between East Africa and Madagascar continental margins, is characterized by several isolated shallow-water carbonate platforms (the Eparses Islands) and by flat-top seamounts and terraces currently lying at several hundred meters deep. Based on a varied oceanographic dataset, including bathymetric-+ DEMs, submarine videos, dredged rock samples and multi-resolution seismic, our study revealed that the surrounding flat-top submarine edifices correspond to drowned isolated shallow-water carbonate platforms that originally settled on volcanic substrates during distinct Cenozoic periods. The major drowning events, which occurred during the Late Neogene, were seemingly triggered by high rates of accommodation creation induced by extensional tectonic and/or by environmental perturbations related to volcanic activity. In parallel, tectonic deformation and volcanic accretion also resulted in the formation of raised topographies that formed relevant substrates for the edification of modern carbonate platforms and atolls. The location, timing and nature of the Late Cenozoic geodynamic activity observed along the studied isolated carbonate platforms tend to emphasize the influence and the propagation of the East African Rift System until the southern Mozambique Channel and strengthen recent kinematic models.

SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology) and the CSPG (Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists) convened the Mountjoy II Carbonate Research Conference in Austin, Texas, from June 25-29, 2017. The conference, honoring Eric Mountjoy and his numerous contributions as a geologist and graduate student supervisor, was attended by ~140 professors, students, and industry geologists and engineers from around the world. The theme for the conference and now SEPM Special Publication 112-Carbonate Pore Systems-follows the general concept to have topics that are relevant to the petroleum industry and therefore blend the best of cutting-edge geoscience research with industry needs by offering a major publication featuring studies with significant new results in the analysis of carbonate pore systems. This new SEPM-CSPG Special Publication is timely given the renewed interest in carbonate reservoirs, including those in carbonate mudrock deposits, as well as the many new technical advances and approaches that are being utilized in diagenetic studies.

The impetus for this publication was a desire to share knowledge on the Vaicos Platform Holocene and Pleistocene sedimentology, diagenesis, platform evolution, and the applicability of the platform as an analogue for ancient isolated carbonate platforms. This volume should serve as an intermediate-term documentation of research efforts and a spur for additional studies to better understand controls on sediment distribution, diagenesis, and the evolution of platform growth, furthering the Caicos Platform as an analogue for ancient, isolated, carbonate platforms.

A comprehensive and richly illustrated overview of the Gulf of Mexico Basin, including its reservoirs, source rocks, tectonics and evolution.