Atlas of Microbial Mat Features Preserved Within the Siliciclastic Rock Record

Octavian Catuneanu is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta, with PhD degrees from the University of Toronto and the University of Bucharest. He is the recipient of several distinctions in the field of Geology, including the W.W. Hutchison Medal of the Geological Association of Canada for exceptional advances in earth science research, and best paper awards from the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers, the Geological Society of America, and the Romanian Academy of Sciences. Octavian Catuneanu served as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal of Marine and Petroleum Geology, Chair of the Task Group on Sequence Stratigraphy of the International Subcommission on Stratigraphic Classification, Chair of the North American Commission on Stratigraphic Nomenclature, and member of the editorial board of several journals in North America, Europe, and Africa. He is the editor of several books and special issues, author of numerous publications in the fields of sedimentology, stratigraphy, and basin analysis, and instructor of sequence stratigraphy and related disciplines for universities, conferences, and companies worldwide. The first edition of his "Principles of Sequence Stratigraphy” textbook (Elsevier, 2006) received the 2007 "Outstanding Academic Title” Choice Award from the American Library Association and remains a best-selling title.

Drawing on a combination of modern occurrences and likely ancient counterparts, this atlas is a treatise of mat-related sedimentary features that one may expect to see in ancient terrigenous clastic sedimentary successions. By combining modern and ancient examples, the connection is made to likely formative processes and the utilization of these features in the interpretation of ancient sedimentary rocks.

1. Prologue: an introduction to microbial mats
2. Structures left by modern microbial mats in their host sediments
3. Classification of structures left by microbial mats in their host sediments
4. Mat features in sandstones
5. Microbial mats on muddy substrates - examples of possible sedimentary features and underlying processes
6. Discussion of some problems: unusual features and the importance of terminology
7. Examples of stratigraphic units bearing outstanding mat features
8. New developments in research on microbial mats
9. Palaeoenvironmental and chronological relationships of mat-related features, and sequence stratigraphic implications of microbial mats
10. Conclusions