The purpose of this monograph is to provide participants in my various short courses with a brief statement of the material I cover in my lectures. In addition, key illustrations are reproduced for guidance. A brief bibliography of reference material is appended to each chapter. The bibliographic material includes those references that I consider critical to my remarks. No claim is made of topical or bibliographic completeness. This monograph also is intended as a brief summary of depositional processes, Holocene sediments, ancient counterparts of depositional environments, and examples of oil- and gas-bearing stratigraphic traps in five depositional environments. This summary is intended to complement lecture and reading courses dealing with sedimentology, depositional systems, sedimentary facies, sedimentary environments, sandstone diagenesis, and sedimentary modelling as a predictive tool for exploration. The student is cautioned, however, that this monograph is merely an introduction and summary overview of the subject. More complete treatments appear in standard textbooks. Sedimentology has changed and advanced over the past twenty-five years, in part because the American oil industry needed to make predictions about the occurrence of the harder-to-find stratigraphic traps. In addition, the development of plate-tectonic theory, and supportive data from the Deep Sea Drilling Project, have caused sedimentology to change from an essentially descriptive science to a mature, predictive science. The 1960s and 1970s in particular witnessed an explosion of new insights and understanding of how sediments are deposited, and how sedimentary rocks are formed.

This rock-based book is an attempt to link deep-water process sedimentology with sandstone petroleum reservoirs. In presenting a consistent process interpretation, the author has relied on his description and interpretation of core and outcrop (1:20 to 1:50 scale) from 35 case studies (which include 32 petroleum reservoirs), totaling more than 30,000 feet (9,145 m), carried out during the past 30 years (1974-2004). This book should serve as an important source of information for students on history, methodology, first principles, advanced concepts, controversies, and practical applications on deep-water sedimentology and petroleum geology. * Discusses the link between deep-water process sedimentology and petroleum geology * Addresses criteria for recognizing deposits of gravity-driven, thermohaline-driven, wind-driven, and tide-driven processes in deep-water environments * Provides head-on approach to resolve controversial process-related problems