Atlas Of Sedimentary Rocks Under The Microscope

A. E. ADAMS W. S. MACKENZIE C. GUILFORD The English Language Book Society is funded by the Overseas Development Administration of the British Government. It makes available low­ priced, unabridged editions of British publishers' textbooks to students in developing countries. Below is a list of some other books on earth sciences published under the ELBS imprint. Blyth and de Freitas A Geology for Engineers Edward Arnold Deer, Howie and Zussman An Introduction to the Rock-Forming Minerals Longman Evans An Introduction to Ore Geology Blackwell Scientific Hall Igneous Petrology Longman Holmes; Holmes (reviser) Holmes: Principles of Physical Geology Van Nostrand Reinhold (UK) Kearey and Brooks An Introduction to Geophysical Exploration Blackwell Scientific MacKenzie, Donaldson and Guilford Atlas of Igneous Rocks and Their Textures Longman MacKenzie and Guilford Atlas of Rock-Forming Minerals in Thin Section Longman Read and Watson Introduction to Geology Vols Macmillan Tucker Sedimentary Petrology Blackwell Scientific Watson Geology and Man Unwin Hyman 1 and 2 Atlas of Sedimentary Rocks under the Microscope A. E. ADAMS W. S. MACKENZIE C. GUILFORD [IEL[BSI[ English Language Book Society/Longman Longman Scientfi i c & Technical Longman Group UK Ltd, Longman House, Burnt Mill, Harlow, Essex CM20 2JE, England Associated companies throughout the world ©Longman Group UK Ltd 1984 All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Publishers. First published 1984 Reprinted 1987 ELBS edition first published 1988 ISBN 0 582 02701 2 Printed and bound in Great Britain by William Clowes Ltd, Beccles and London Contents Preface vi Acknowledgements vii Part I Terrigenous clastic rocks Part 2 Carbonate rocks 33 Part 3 Other sedimentary rocks 75 Appendix I Appendix 2 Appendix 3 Preparation of a thin section of a rock Staining a thin section of a limestone Preparation of a stained acetate peel of a limestone 97 99 2 100 References 101 Index 102 Preface using thin sections and a petrographic m i cr oscope was initiated by llcnry Clifton Sor by in the middle of the nineteenth century and the first rocks he described were silicified limestones from the Jurassic in Yorkshire. This work was published in 1851. His presi dential address to the Geological Society of London in 1879 was entitled 'On the struct ure an d origi n of limestones' and Sorby had a series of plates made from camera Iucida drawings, reproduced for private circulation with copies of the text of his a dd ress. These The study of rock s . illustrated the microscopic characteristics o f l imestones from through­ Bri tish geological record and amoun ted to the first petro­ atlas. Despite the pertinence of Sorby's work, much of which is still valid today, few people recogni;ed its importance at the time. While the petrographic study of igneous and metamorphic rocks became increasingly important. that ofsedimentary rocks languished until well into the present century. Since about 1950. with much geological research directed toward� the search for oil and gas trapped in the pore-spaces of sedimentary rocks, sedimentary petrography