Oil and Gas

1. Know the components of clastic sediments and how they are transported and deposited in sedimentary basins.
2. Have a knowledge of the processes that occur in different clastic depositional environments and be able to recognise their products in sedimentary rocks.
3. Be able to determine the environment of deposition from successions of clastic strata formed in continental, shallow marine and deep marine settings.
4. Know the characteristics of aeolian, lacustrine, fluvial, coastal, deltaic, estuarine, shelf and deep water facies and how they are expressed in logged successions.
5. Be able to consider the deposits of different settings in terms of reservoir potential and the characteristic features of these reservoirs.
6. Be familiar with case studies of oil and gas fields hosted in the deposits of different clastic depositional settings.

Clastic Sediments and Sedimentary Rocks

In this module you'll learn key terminology and composition of clastic sedimentary rocks, how sedimentary structures form and are described, and how these features reveal depositional environments. These fundamentals set up later modules exploring sandstones and mudstones and reconstructing past environments from sedimentary evidence.

Facies, Environments and Analogues

This module covers sedimentological data collection (core description, palaeocurrents, provenance), the concept and analysis of facies and facies associations, methods for constructing paleoenvironments and Gross Depositional Environment maps, and the limitations of using modern or ancient analogues when interpreting facies associations.

Aeolian Environments and Facies

This module explains how to distinguish aeolian sandstones from other sandy deposits, recognises desert environments and their features, reviews aeolian bedform scales and their preservation in the rock record, and examines how global climate controls the distribution of aeolian facies.

Fluvial Sedimentology

This module covers tributary and distributive river patterns, channel planforms and their deposits, characteristics of bedload and mixed-load rivers, sand and fine sediment floodplain deposition, use of palaeosols for paleoenvironmental interpretation, and controls on fluvial deposit architecture and their impact on reservoir properties.

Lacustrine Environments

Lakes are inland, non-marine water bodies formed in surface depressions and retained by natural sills. Under humid conditions they have low salinity, while high evaporation can concentrate dissolved ions, producing saline or ephemeral lakes. This module examines lacustrine formation, controls, water chemistry and sedimentary expression.

Interior Basins

Interior basins differ from marine-connected basins by limited outlet and distinct sediment-water dynamics. This module examines alluvial fan processes, deposition, and stratigraphic recognition, plus ephemeral lakes and their characteristic facies. Together these topics explain sedimentary patterns and controls unique to enclosed continental basins.

Tidal Environments

This module explains tidal processes and sediment-transporting currents in shallow marine and coastal settings, surveys coastal and shelf environments affected by tides, describes sedimentary structures diagnostic of tidal deposition, and characterises tidal sandstone bodies to aid interpretation of tidally-influenced reservoir and outcrop successions.

Coastal Environments of Deposition

Coastal environments form the land, sea interface and include coastal plains, beaches, barriers, and lagoons. This module explores waves, wind-driven surface oscillations, shape shorelines. Wave-dominated coasts develop constructional beaches and barriers with protected lagoons, while estuaries receiving riverine sediment can preserve combined wave and fluvial signatures in their deposits.

Deltas

This module explains a delta is sediment built outward from a river mouth into a sea or lake. Delta morphology reflects river discharge and sediment supply, receiving water depth, and shoreline processes like waves, longshore drift and tides. These interactions create a mosaic of depositional sub-environments, each with distinct sedimentary characteristics and architectures.

Shelves

This module covers wave, storm and tidal sediment transport on shallow marine shelves; storm deposits producing graded beds with hummocky and swaley cross-stratification; and recognition of shelf depth zones using characteristic trace-fossil (ichnofauna) assemblages to interpret depositional settings and paleoenvironmental conditions.

Deep Water Processes and Products – Part 1

This module explains deep-water clastic transport by turbidity currents and debris flows (sediment gravity flows), how their deposits build submarine fans whose morphology depends on mud, sand and gravel proportions, and how slope gravitational instabilities cause deformation while distal basin areas accumulate fine suspended sediments.

Deep Water Processes and Products – Part 2

This module examines deep marine clastic deposits, slope channels, submarine fan channels, levees, lobes, turbidite sheets and Mass Transport Complexes. It will explore contourites from ocean currents, pelagic and hemipelagic inputs, and how the calcite compensation depth influences biogenic carbonate preservation and pelagic sediment composition.