Study of a mature petroleum play in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) indicates that the spatial distribution of petroleum accumulations exhibits a self-affinity characteristic. This characteristic motivated the examination of a fractal model for a quantitative description of petroleum resource spatial distribution. The proposed approach transforms the spatial information with respect...

A novel sedimentary transformation product of chlorophyll, purpurin-7 phytyl ester, has been identi®ed by atmospheric pressure chemical ionisation liquid chromatography mass-spectrometry in sediments from Lake Baikal, Russia, Loch Ness and Priest Pot, UK. This product of oxidative transformation is an intermediate on the transformation pathway leading to sedimentary aetioporphyrins and its occu...

An appealing strategy for reconstructing the timing and tempo of paleoenvironmental change from sedimentary strata is to linearly interpolate between marker beds known age. This method requires significant assumptions, but more advanced age modeling methods are usually not feasible. We used experiments explore how changes in processes invalidate these assumptions affect estimates time strata. W...

The kinetics of sulfate reduction and inorganic nutrient production (~C02' ammonium, and phosphate) were examined in the sediments at five sites in the southern Chesapeake Bay, using long term (> 200 d) sediment decomposition experiments. Average first order rate constants for these processes (at 25°C) decreased from 8.2 to 3.7 yrin the surface sediments (0-2 em), to 2.1 to 0.2 yrat 12-14 em. T...

The Corg:P ratios of organic-rich facies (TOCN1%) exhibit considerable variation through the Phanerozoic, from b10:1 in the Permian Phosphoria Formation to N1000:1 in some Devonian black shales. Relative to the composition of phytoplankton (C:P ∼106:1), which provide the bulk of organic C and P to organic-rich marine sediments, the range of Phanerozoic sedimentary Corg:P ratios largely reflects...

Nd and Sr isotopic studies of Australasian tektites provide info~ation on the age and provenance of the target materials and allow us to characterize the target area and the impact process leading to tektite formation. ENd values of australites, splash-form indochinites, and Muong Nong-type indochinites are indistinguishable within analytical uncertainty and average -11.5 cu. Depleted mantle Nd...

Sedimentary rocks are composed of detrital grains derived from source rocks, which are altered by chemical weathering, sorted during transport, and cemented during diagenesis. Fluvio-lacustrine sedimentary rocks of the Bradbury group, observed on the floor of Gale crater by the Curiosity rover during its first 860 sols, show trends in bulk chemistry that are consistent with sorting of mineral g...

Protection against arsenic damage in organisms positioned deep in the tree of life points to early evolutionary sensitization. Here, marine sedimentary records reveal a Proterozoic arsenic concentration patterned to glacial-interglacial ages. The low glacial and high interglacial sedimentary arsenic concentrations, suggest deteriorating habitable marine conditions may have coincided with atmosp...

The atmospheres of solid planets exert a fundamental control on their surfaces. Interactions between atmospheric and geologic processes influence the morphology and composition of surfaces, and over the course of geologic time determine the historical evolution of the planet’s surface environments including climate. In the case of Earth, the origin of life likely occurred within surface environ...