Gas and fluid vents are being observed with increasing frequency in a variety of depositional settings in the modern day deep-sea. In some cases, these sedimentary features are a result of the destabilization of gas clathrate hydrates below the sediment water interface. However, documented evidence of sedimentary structures related to these processes in the ancient rock record is limited. This study finds evidence for fluidized sediment injection in a succession of fine-grained sedimentary rocks that outcrops in the Basin and Range Province of the south-western United States. These rocks are interpreted to have been deposited in a fault controlled embayment, or half-graben, that formed on the continental shelf of the paleocontinent Laurentia. In this embayment, event deposits comprising sediment gravity flows and carbonate biosomes punctuate thinly bedded muddy to fine-grained sediments interpreted to have been deposited by suspension settling and traction. Unique to the biosomes are features that indicate syn-depositional deformation triggered by seismic activity. Seismic activity is also responsible for increasing pore-pressure of the sediments constrained by the dense, micritic biosomes resulting in fluid injection from sediments below the sediment-water interface. Petrographic and geochemical analyses of these preserved fluidization structures indicates that these fluids may have contained liquid or gaseous carbon dioxide. While these features indicate that fluidized sediment injection was an important process in the early diagenetic history of these sediments, clear evidence for the presence of gas clathrate hydrates has not been found.

Diagenesis refers to changes taking place in sediments after deposition. In a theoretical treatment of early diagenesis, Robert Berner shows how a rigorous development of the mathematical modeling of diagenetic processes can be useful to the understanding and interpretation of both experimental and field observations. His book is unique in that the models are based on quantitative rate expressions, in contrast to the qualitative descriptions that have dominated the field. In the opening chapters, the author develops the mathematical theory of early diagenesis, introducing a general diagenetic equation and discussing it in terms of each major diagenetic process. Included are the derivations of basic rate equations for diffusion, compaction, pore-water flow, burial advection, bioturbation, adsorption, radioactive decay, and especially chemical and biochemical reactions. Drawing on examples from the recent literature on continental-margin, pelagic, and non-marine sediments, he then illustrates the power of these diagenetic models in the study of such deposits. The book is intended not only for earth scientists studying sediments and sedimentary rocks, but also for researchers in fields such as radioactive waste disposal, petroleum and economic geology, environmental pollution, and sea-floor engineering.

The present volume is an intellectual agglomeration covering a variety of topics in diagenesis. It starts with the diagenesis of marine pore waters and soft-sediment deformations, followed by two chapters on sandstones - one on climatic influence in terrestrial sandstone diagenesis and the other on the deep-sea volcaniclastic sandstones. Diagenesis of carbonates is treated next, with one chapter on compactional diagenesis and another devoted to a case study (Aymestry Limestone Beds, UK). There are two chapters on the origin and migration of oil: (a) maturation of organic matter, and (b) relation of diagenesis to mineralization and hydrocarbon reservoir development, followed by a chapter on sedimentary ore genesis - banded iron-formation. In conclusion there are two chapters on paleosols. This book will be of interest to geologists, geochemists and petroleum engineers.

Diagenesis is a highly developed, interdisciplinary field of study. It is reciprocal in that it borrows from numerous scientific or technological specialities and then, in turn, repays them with useful results. Too often, however, the information gained and concepts developed remain unintegrated instead of being utilized quickly by several related earth-science fraternities. This volume, the first of a multi-volume work, attempts to bring together such information, thereby assisting the individual and the research group in keeping up with the data explosion. There is no end in sight to diagenetic research because of its wide practical and intellectual appeals. Consequently, periodic reviews, such as presented in this volume, are greatly needed.

The present volume continues the philosophy of gathering contributions on diagenesis on behalf of those requiring such periodic literary surveys, namely, academics and practitioners (teachers, researchers, and oil and ore explorationists).