Mass Transport, Gravity Flows, and Bottom Currents: Downslope and Alongslope Processes and Deposits

By G. Shanmugam

Mass Transport, Gravity Flows, and Bottom Currents: Downslope and Alongslope Processes and Deposits focuses solely on important downslope and alongslope processes. The book provides clear definitions and characteristics based on soil mechanics, fluid mechanics and sediment concentration by volume. It addresses Slides, Slumps, and Debris Flows, Grain Flows, Liquefied/Fluidized Flows, and Turbidity Currents, Density plumes, Hyperpycnal Flows, the Triggering Mechanisms of Downslope Processes, Bottom Currents, and Soft-Sediment Deformation Structures. The mechanics of each process are described in detail and used to provide empirically-driven categories to help recognize these deposits it the rock record.

Case studies clearly illustrate of the problems inherent in recognizing these processes in the rock record, and potential solutions are provided alongside future avenues of research. An appendix also provides step-by-step guidance in describing and interpreting sediments.

• Comprehensively addresses modern downslope and alongslope processes, including definitions and mechanisms
• Provides key criteria for the recognition of depositional facies in the rock record
• Includes case studies to illustrate each downslope and alongslope process
• Identifies key problems and potential solutions for future research
• Uses pragmatic, empirical, data-driven interpretations to revise conventional facies models

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Release date: Oct 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9780128225745

Book preview

Mass Transport, Gravity Flows, and Bottom Currents

Downslope and Alongslope Processes and Deposits

G. Shanmugam

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas, United States

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

About the author

Professional preparation

Employment

Research

Publications

Global workshops on deep-water sandstone petroleum reservoirs

Awards, recognitions, and nomination

Philanthropy

Online resources for his publications

Transformation from a local science teacher to a global petroleum geologist

Science teacher

Motivations by TNM

Nature photographer

Preface

Acknowledgments

Parents, teachers, and benefactors

Early research (1965–78)

Mobil research on mass transport, gravity flows, and bottom currents (1978–2000)

Consultant research (2000–present)

Tsunamite research (2004–present)

Contourite research (1974–present)

Density plumes and hyperpycnite research (2002–present)

Sediment deformation and seismite research (1978–present)

Academic events (1968–present)

Editorial board member (2018–present)

Photographs

Elsevier

Copyrights and permissions

Editors and reviewers (1978–2020)

Logistics

ResearchGate (2014–present)

Wife and friend (1975–present)

The rocks (1962–present)

Chapter 1. Introduction

Abstract

Outline

1.1 Why this book?

1.2 History

1.3 Universal case studies

1.4 Environments and processes

1.5 Objectives

1.6 Organization

1.7 Other aspects of the book

1.8 Synopsis

Chapter 2. Mass transport: slides, slumps, and debris flows

Abstract

Outline

2.1 Introduction

2.2 International projects and symposiums

2.3 Mechanics of sediment failure and sliding

2.4 Soil strength and slope stability

2.5 The role of excess pore-water pressure

2.6 Nomenclature and classification

2.7 Recognition of the three basic types of mass-transport deposits

2.8 Slides

2.9 Slumps

2.10 Debris flows: a prelude

2.11 Long-runout mechanisms

2.12 Reservoir characterization

2.13 Synopsis

Chapter 3. Gravity flows: debris flows, grain flows, liquefied/fluidized flows, turbidity currents, hyperpycnal flows, and contour currents

Abstract

Outline

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Gravity (i.e., density) flows

3.3 Gravity-driven downslope processes

3.4 Debris flows

3.5 Liquefied/fluidized flows

3.6 Grain flows

3.7 Turbidity currents

3.8 Hyperpycnal flows: a prelude

3.9 Thermohaline contour currents: a prelude

3.10 Synopsis

Chapter 4. A paradigm shift

Abstract

Outline

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Amazon Fan, Equatorial Atlantic

4.3 Mississippi Fan, Gulf of Mexico

4.4 Monterey Fan, North Pacific

4.5 Krishna-Godavari (KG) Basin, Bay of Bengal, India

4.6 The Annot Sandstone (Eocene–Oligocene), Peira-Cava Area, Maritime Alps, SE France

4.7 The Jackfork Group, Pennsylvanian, Ouachita Mountains

4.8 Basin-floor fan model, Tertiary, North Sea

4.9 Mass-flow lobes, Ulleung Basin, East Sea, Korea

4.10 Upper Triassic Yanchang Formation, Ordos Basin, central China

4.11 Supercritical and subcritical fans

4.12 Synopsis

Chapter 5. Density plumes: types, deflections, and external controls

Abstract

Outline

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Dataset

5.3 General types of density plumes

5.4 Deflected sediment plumes and their control

5.5 Global significance of wind forcing on sediment plumes

5.6 Implications for sediment transport

5.7 Implications for provenance

5.8 Synopsis

Chapter 6. Hyperpycnal flows

Abstract

Outline

6.1 Definition

6.2 Origin

6.3 Identification

6.4 Hyperpycnites and related issues

6.5 Basic concepts

6.6 The Yellow River, China: a case study

6.7 The Yangtze River, China: a case study

6.8 External controls

6.9 Recognition of ancient hyperpycnites

6.10 Cyclone-induced hyperpycnal turbidity currents in canyons

6.11 Configurations of density plumes

6.12 Global case studies

6.13 Challenges

6.14 Future research directions

6.15 Academic discussions

6.16 Synopsis

Chapter 7. Triggering mechanisms of downslope processes

Abstract

Outline

7.1 Definition

7.2 Origin

7.3 Synopsis

Chapter 8. Bottom currents

Abstract

Outline

8.1 Introduction

8.2 Vertical continuum: surface currents, deep-water masses, and bottom currents

8.3 The thermohaline circulation

8.4 Four types of bottom currents

8.5 Thermohaline-induced geostrophic bottom currents (i.e., contour currents)

8.6 The contourite problem

8.7 Wind-driven bottom currents

8.8 Tidal bottom currents in submarine canyons

8.9 Baroclinic currents (internal waves and internal tides)

8.10 Sediment provenance

8.11 Reservoir quality

8.12 Synopsis

Chapter 9. Soft-sediment deformation structures

Abstract

Outline

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Datasets

9.3 Definition

9.4 Origin

9.5 Classification

9.6 Advances

9.7 Geological implications based on case studies

9.8 Synopsis

Chapter 10. Epilogue: lessons learned

Abstract

Outline

10.1 Lessons learned

Appendix A. Concepts, glossary, and methodology

Appendix B. Video of flume experiments on Sandy debris flows

B.1 Composition of slurries used in experiments

B.2 Video content

B.3 Deposits

Bibliography

Author Index

Subject Index

Copyright

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Notices

Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary.

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN: 978-0-12-822576-9

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Acquisitions Editor: Louisa Munro

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Cover Designer: Matthew Limbert

Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India

Dedication

Dedicated to five sedimentologic and oceanographic pioneers of the 20th century: R.A. Bagnold, J.E. Sanders, G.D. Klein, F.P. Shepard, and C.D. Hollister

About the author

G. (Shan) Shanmugam is an adjunct professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, United States. He is also an adjunct professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, United States. He is a person of Indian origin (Fig. 1). He emigrated to the United States in 1970 and became a naturalized US citizen in 1990. He has been married to his American wife, Jean, since 1976. He is a pragmatic and an iconoclastic deep-water process sedimentologist. His primary contributions are aimed at documenting the volumetric importance of sandy mass-transport deposits and bottom-current reworked sands in deep-water petroleum reservoirs worldwide and at dispelling the popular myth that most deep-water sands are turbidites.

Figure 1 G. Shanmugam was born in Sirkazhi, Tamil Nadu, India.

Professional preparation

1978: Ph.D., Geology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, United States

1972: M.S., Geology, Ohio University, Athens, OH, United States

1968: M.Sc., Applied Geology, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, India

1965: B.Sc., Geology and Chemistry, Annamalai University (AU), Tamil Nadu, India

Note: He served as a research scholar under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Government of India, at IIT Bombay during 1968–1970.

Employment

He joined Mobil Research and Development Corporation in Dallas, TX, United States as a Research Geologist in 1978 and retired from Mobil (now ExxonMobil) as a Geological Scientist in 2000 (Fig. 2).

Figure 2 Three Mobil research laboratories in Texas, United States, where G. Shanmugam conducted research during 1978-2000. Top image: Research includes oil generation from coal in the Gippsland Basin, Australia (Shanmugam, 1985a) and porosity enhancement from chert dissolution beneath Neocomian unconformity in the Prudhoe Bay Field, Alaska (Shanmugam and Higguns, 1988). Middle image: Research includes the Ouachita flysch in the USA (Shanmugam and Moiola, 1995) and basin-floor fans in the North Sea (Shanmugam et al., 1995a). It is worth noting that this Mobil Dallas Research Laboratory was designed by a world-renowned architect I. M. Pei, who also designed the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, France. Bottom image: Research includes bottom-current reworked sands by hybrid flows in the Gulf of Mexico (Shanmugam et al., 1993a), tide-dominated estuarine facies in the Oriente Basin, Ecuador (Shanmugam et al., 2000), and the Annot Sandstone in the Peira Cava area, Maritime Alps, SE France, which served as the type locality for developing the Bouma Sequence (Shanmugam, 2002a).

Research

He conducted outcrop studies of deepwater deposits in the Southern Appalachians (Tennessee, United States), Ouachita Mountains (Arkansas and Oklahoma, United States), and Peira Cava area (French Maritime Alps, SE France). He described deep-water strata using conventional cores and outcrops (1:20 to 1:50 scale), which include 32 deepwater sandstone petroleum reservoirs worldwide, totaling over 10,000 m in cumulative thickness during 1974–2011.

He also conducted field studies of coal deposits in Victoria (Australia), coniferous rain forests in the North Island (New Zealand), limestone karst in Guilin (China), fluvial deposits in Gujarat (India), 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami-related coastal deposits in Tamil Nadu (India), shallow-marine deposits in Qassim area (Saudi Arabia), and estuarine deposits in the Oriente Basin (Ecuador).

Publications

He has over 380 published works, including two volumes of Elsevier’s Handbook of Petroleum Exploration and Production (2006 and 2012) and their Chinese editions (Fig. 3).

Figure 3 Images of Elsevier books published by G. Shanmugam in English and Chinese.

Global workshops on deep-water sandstone petroleum reservoirs

He organized deep-water sandstone workshops for:

• the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in Scotland (1995 and 1997);

• Petrobras, Mobil, and Unocal in Brazil and Dallas, Texas (1998 and 1999);

• Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) in India (2002 and 2004);

• Reliance Industries Ltd. in India (2006–09) (Fig. 4);

• Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development (RIPED), PetroChina in Beijing (2009–10) (Fig. 5);

• Yanchang Oilfield Exploration and Development, Research Institute of Yan’an Branch (China) (2014);

• China University of Petroleum, Qingdao, China (2014) (Fig. 6).

Figure 4 Images of core workshop conducted at Reliance Industries, India. See a core-seismic based sedimentologic study of sandy debrites and tidalites in submarine canyons from the offshore Krishna-Godavari Basin, Bay of Bengal (India) by Shanmugam, Shrivastava and Das (2009).

Figure 5 Image of workshop participants at RIPED in Beijing.

Figure 6 Image of workshop participants at China University of Petroleum, Qingdao.

Awards, recognitions, and nomination

• 1968: IIT Medal for the top-ranking student in Applied Geology, Civil Engineering Department, IIT Bombay, India (Fig. 7).

• 1995: Best paper award from NAPE (Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists) for his paper Deepwater Exploration: Conceptual Models and their Uncertainties.

• His paper High-density turbidity currents: are they sandy debris flows? published in the Journal of Sedimentary Research in 1996, has achieved the status of the single most cited paper in sedimentological research published in three world-renowned periodicals - Journal of Sedimentary Research, Sedimentology, and Sedimentary Geology - during the survey period of 1996–2003 (Source: International Association of Sedimentologists Newsletter, August 2003).

• He was interviewed by the SUN TV, Chennai, India (televised on December 30th, 2003) on his controversial research papers on turbidite sedimentation and their implications for petroleum reservoirs (Fig. 8).

• He is an Emeritus Member of SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology); member since 1970.

• 2010–11: Scientific Advisor: Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development (RIPED) of PetroChina, Beijing, China.

• 2018: He is the recipient of FeTNA 2018 Tamil American Pioneer Award for his extraordinary professional achievements in academia. FeTNA: Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America. Award Date: June 30, 2018. Frisco, Texas (Fig. 9). http://tap.fetna.org/category/2018/.

• 2018: He is the recipient of the University of Tennessee College of Arts & Sciences 2018 Professional Achievement Award. Award Date: September 21, 2018. Knoxville, Tennessee (Fig. 10). https://artsci.utk.edu/dialogue/honor-college-alumni/.

• 2019–21: He was nominated for the SEPM 2020 William F. Twenhofel Medal, which is the top award given every year for contributions in sedimentary geology.

Figure 7 1968 IIT Bombay Medal.

Figure 8 Appearance at SUN TV, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.

Figure 9 2018 Tamil American Pioneer Award.

Figure 10 2018 Professional Achievement Award.

Philanthropy

• He has two Endowed Graduate Fellowships in Sedimentary Geology and Petroleum Geology ($60,000) at his alma mater, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS), The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee.

• I am thankful to Larry McKay (Associate Dean) and Andrew Sheehy (Senior Director of Development) for help with establishing fellowships.

Online resources for his publications

• Blog (deep-water processes): http://g-shanmugam.blogspot.com/

• ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/G_Shanmugam/publications

• UTA profile: http://www.uta.edu/profiles/Ganapathy-Shanmugam

Transformation from a local science teacher to a global petroleum geologist

In celebrating the 90th anniversary of AU, my alma mater, in 2020, Dr. K. Muthuraman, Dean of Faculty of Fine Arts and the Convener of Souvenir Committee, invited me to write a brief article on my reminiscence about the AU. Upon receiving this letter, my instinctual response was one of exuberance. The very first thought came to my mind was the late Professor T.N. Muthuswami Iyer (Fig. 11). He was popularly known as TNM. He was an internationally known mineralogist and a pioneer in the study of Madras charnockites in the early 1950s. He was the first Head of the Department of Geology at AU since its founding in 1953 and also during my B.Sc. years (1962–65). TNM was solely responsible for my successful career as a global petroleum geologist. I would like to share his motivational story with colleagues and students on this historic and auspicious occasion (Shanmugam, 2020).

Figure 11 Professor T. N. Muthuswami Iyer.

Science teacher

I was born in 1944 in a town called Sirkazhi, which is located 23 km south of AU near Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu, India (Fig. 1). I attended AU as a train student, commuting everyday from Sirkazhi to Chidambaram. Although my parents, K. Ganapathy Mudaliar and G. Sambooranam Ammal, were not educated, they were keen on my education. They knew that my education was the only escape out of their poverty. Our family consisted of my parents, myself, and my four younger sisters, namely Dhanalaxmi, Saraswathi, Chandra, and Savithri (deceased). My parents’ primary concern was dowries associated with my sisters’ forthcoming weddings. This financial background is important to this story.

I earned my B.Sc. degree in geology with a first class (equivalent to A grade in the United States). It is worth noting that my degree was signed by Sir C.P. Ramaswami Iyer, then Vice Chancellor of AU. In the summer of 1965, I secured a position as a science teacher at Krishnamoorthy Arunachala Mudaliar High School, located a few kilometers from my home. My parents were ecstatic because for the first time they will have a monthly income from my salary. Normally, my story would have ended as a science teacher, but the story took a drastic turn and has continued as a petroleum geologist because of TNM.

Motivations by TNM

During my employment as a science teacher in 1965, I received a postcard from TNM. The card simply read Come see me. His postcard was a surprise to me. Anyway, I went to AU and met with TNM in his office. This was my first face-to-face meeting with the Head of the Department. I was rather nervous, not knowing what to expect.

TNM greeted me with great affection like a grandfather. He first congratulated me in passing my exams with a First Class. He wanted to know what my plans were for the future. I explained to him that my life is settled in Sirkazhi as a science teacher. He said, You are one of our top students, you have unlimited potential to become a successful geologist, and you should pursue your graduate studies in Applied Geology at IIT Bombay. At that time, I did not know anything about IIT Bombay. Given my family’s financial challenges, I knew that TNM’s proposal was impossible. I explained my family situation to TNM. He said in a rather commanding tone, I cannot let you miss this rare opportunity. Do something to get a loan and go to IIT. At that point, I realized that I should do something to resolve the financial problem. Although I did not know how to resolve the problem, I told TNM that I will resolve the problem and will attend IIT. He was pleased with my determination and with my positive response.

I did resolve the financial problem by obtaining a long-term loan from a local businessman, Sri. D. Sambandam, who was an elder brother of my childhood friend, Sri. D. Arumugam.

At IIT Bombay, I studied under the supervision of Professor A. Parthasarathy (his DIC and PhD degrees were from the Imperial College and London University, respectively, 1954). My M.Sc. thesis at IIT was on fluvial sedimentology and statistics. I received the Institute Medal for the top-ranking student in Applied Geology (1968). As part of the curriculum, I received my first field training from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) in the Great Rann of Kutch in the Thar Desert under Dr. S.K. Biswas and laboratory training in the Ahmadabad office (Gujarat). IIT Bombay not only prepared me for my sedimentology and petroleum geology career but also led me to pursue graduate studies in the United States.

Throughout my studies at IIT Bombay, I kept TNM informed of my progress. Finally, I informed him about my plans to go to the United States in all of 1970. At this point in time, TNM had retired from AU and settled in Madras. In his response, he wrote me a letter in August 1970. After 50 years, I still have his letter in my possession (Fig. 12). Because of poor resolution of the scanned copy of letter, I have transcribed the letter content below:

Figure 12 1970 Post card to G. Shanmugam by Professor T. N. Muthuswami Iyer.

"Raja Annamalaipuram-Madras: 10-8-70

My Dear Shanmugam,

Very happy to see your kind letter. I am sure you will have a very successful and bright career in Ohio University. It is very good of you to think of me. Few people have this affection and regard.

I have permanently shifted to Madras. I am staying with my son Naganathan, who is Area Manager-ALITALIA. If you have to book your passage to Ohio he will do everything for you. His office address…

Hope to meet you when you go next to Madras.

Yours sincerely,

T.N. Muthuswami

(Signature)"

Indeed, his son did book my passage to America by ALITALIA Airlines. Of course, I did go to his house in Madras and did meet him in person before my departure to the United States. He was very proud of my achievements. He would have been even more thrilled to witness my achievements since then, including the arrangements of weddings of all my three sisters. He is in Heaven and smiling down on me, I am sure!

Nature photographer

Shanmugam has published numerous photographs of outcrops and cores showing unique geological features on the covers of international geological journals (Fig. 13, 14 and 15).

Figure 13 (A) Pulpit Rock, Norway; (B) Basin-plain turbidites Zumaya, Spain.

Figure 14 (A) Karst topography, China; (B) Granitix monolith, near Chennai, India.

Figure 15 (A) Ganges River Haridwar, India; (B) Coropaxi Volcano, Ecuador.

Reference

Shanmugam, 2020 Shanmugam, G., 2020. Professor T.N. Muthuswami Iyer and his momentous motivations at Annamalai University (1965): A personal story of transformation from a local science teacher to a global petroleum geologist. Souvenir, 90th anniversary of Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar, Tamil Nadu, India, 7 p.

Preface

G. Shanmugam, Ph.D., [e-mail]

This book is a follow-up to my earlier two books on deep-water processes and deposits published by Elsevier (Shanmugam, 2006a, 2012a). The two previous volumes were aimed primarily at petroleum geoscientists, whereas this one is of a broader scope. There are many empirical reasons for my undertaking this assignment:

1.  Literature gap: There are no books in the market dedicated solely to downslope and alongslope processes.

2. Publishing opportunity: Research-based invitation by Louisa Munro, Acquisitions Editor, Elsevier Limited, Oxford, United Kingdom, based on my 2019 Encyclopedia chapter titled Slides, Slumps, Debris Flows, Turbidity Currents, Hyperpycnal Flows, and Bottom Currents (Shanmugam, 2019a) published in the Elsevier’s Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences (third edition, edited by Kirk Cochran, J., Bokuniewicz, H., and Yager, P.), to write a new book expanding the content for a broader readership.

3.  Global readership: The need for such a book has been revealed by the readers’ response worldwide, who have frequently read/downloaded the above Encyclopedia chapter from my online ResearchGate webpage.

4. Interpretation of hyperpycnites in deep-water basinal settings based on outcrop studies.

Perhaps the compelling reason for writing this book in 2019 is because of the ongoing academic discussions on hyperpycnal flows (Shanmugam, 2019c). The current trend is to promote an unsubstantiated notion, based on study of ancient rock record, that hyperpycnal flows transport sand into the deep sea (Mulder et al., 2003; Mutti, 2019). For example, Mutti (2019) states that Field observations suggest that hypopycnal plumes can generate thin-bedded sand/mud couplets, here termed plumites, that are virtually ubiquitous in turbidite systems. This close association is the best and most direct evidence of the relationship between turbidite and fluvial sedimentation. Plumes propagate in seawater as dilute surface flows and, depending upon their original volume, sediment concentration and basin size, may mantle the basin floor with their fine-grained deposits from shelfal to deep basin plain regions. They may trigger major hyperpycnal flows and deposit thick sand beds in basinal regions, but most commonly form thin beds displaying a spectrum of highly diagnostic facies. Much care must be taken not to mistake these facies for the distal or overbank sediments of turbidity currents. Most of the fine details of plumites are certainly better observed in cores; most cores should be therefore re-analyzed in the light of these new data. The problem is that no one could distinguish hyperpycnal flows from turbidity currents in terms of fluid rheology, flow state, and sediment concentration. In addition, there are 16 types of hyperpycnal flows (Shanmugam, 2018b). Mutti (2019) did not explain which one of the 16 types had caused the sand/mud couplets in hyperpycnites in deep-water basinal settings. Satellite images of modern systems do not support such views of sand transport across the shelf into the deep sea (Chapter 5: Density plumes: types, deflections, and external controls and Chapter 6: Hyperpycnal flows). Also, available books on deep-water sedimentation do not address the link between satellite images and sediment transport with implications for deep-sea sedimentation, which is addressed in Chapter 5, Density plumes: types, deflections, and external controls.

In interpreting ancient sedimentary record of deep-water origin, it is much more meaningful to understand a process and its deposits from modern settings and from laboratory experiments and then apply that knowledge in the field. Mutti’s (2019) approach of interpreting ancient deposits in outcrops without knowing the fluid mechanics of hyperpycnal flows is misguided. This basic flaw is often overlooked in publications on deep-water sedimentation. This book is a cautionary account of this problem associated with deconstructing depositional origin of ancient rock record by reverse engineering.

In addition to the above reasons, my previous contributions on the subject matter facilitate an ideal scenario for writing this book. For example, my contributions include the following:

1. documenting the volumetric importance of sandy mass-transport deposits and bottom-current reworked sands in deep-water petroleum reservoirs worldwide;

2. dispelling the popular myth that most deep-water sands are turbidities (Shanmugam, 2006a, 2012a, 2019a );

3. debunking the myths of facies models on high-density turbidities (Shanmugam, 1996a, b , 2000), tsunamites (Shanmugam, 2006b), landslides (Shanmugam, 2015a), submarine fans (Shanmugam, 2016a), contourites (Shanmugam, 2016b, 2017b), seismites (Shanmugam, 2016c), SSDS (Shanmugam, 2017a), and hyperpycnites (Shanmugam, 2018b);

4. participating in 38 academic debates, both written and oral, during the past 36 years (1983–2019) (see Chapter 6: Hyperpycnal flows).

However, ultimately the objective of any book is to offer a convincing story. This is difficult in dealing with deep-water processes and deposits. This is because of the prevailing plethora of conflicting concepts and models. In this situation, it is imperative to take a fresh look at available data. Therefore the emphasis of this book is to gather a multitude of empirical data universally. I have used a total of 540 case studies or datasets. Images of important examples are included. Whether one agrees or disagrees with my views on a given issue (e.g., high-density turbidity currents or hyperpycnal flows), at least, both sides of an issue will have an opportunity to examine the same data. Although I offer my views on various issues, the reader will have the ultimate say on any given issue. Hopefully, this case study–driven approach will yield a more harmonious outcome on controversies dealing with deep-water processes and deposits.

Although this volume is intended for a wide range of knowledge levels, including students, teachers, and researchers of gravity-driven sedimentary phenomena, and practitioners in the petroleum industry, it is written mostly with the student in mind. Therefore I have (1) adopted bulleted or numbered text format, (2) included copious number of color images of modern and ancient examples in an atlas format, (3) offered solutions to lingering nomenclatural and conceptual problems, (4) explained the practical implications of downslope and alongslope processes from a petroleum reservoir viewpoint, and (5) included an illustrated appendix on concepts, glossary, and methodology and a video on experimental sandy debris flows. This book contains 540 case studies, 344 figures, 28 tables, and a Bibliography with 1,612 published works, which include 106 self-citations as first author and two video lectures, one on the beauty of the rocks by Mutti (2020) and the other on the orthodoxy versus empirical evidence behind the Bouma Sequence by Shanmugam (2020a). Thank you for your interest on this topic.

August 21, 2020

Acknowledgments

This book is the culmination of my learning and conducting research for over 50 years. And I take this singular opportunity to account for a comprehensive acknowledgment of people, institutions, and events that have made significant impacts in my research career.

Parents, teachers, and benefactors

First, I would like to acknowledge my late parents’ (K. Ganapathy and G. Sambooranam) limitless enthusiasm for my education that propelled me out of a remote village in southern India. Second, my sincere thanks to my teachers of geology, in particular, the late Prof. T.N. Muthuswami (Annamalai University, southern India) who persuaded me to go to graduate school at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT Bombay); the late Prof. A. Parthasarathy (IIT Bombay) who trained me on engineering aspects of modern mass-transport deposits (MTDs) and who supervised my MSc thesis on fluvial deposits and statistical analysis; the late Prof. Stanley P. Fisher (Ohio University, Athens) who supervised my MS thesis on sandstone diagenesis of the Ordovician Simpson Group in Southern Oklahoma; Prof. Kenneth R. Walker (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) who supervised my PhD dissertation on tectonics and sedimentation of the Middle Ordovician Sevier Basin in the Southern Appalachians in Tennessee; and Prof. Garrett Briggs (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) who taught me clastic sedimentology and introduced me to the Jackfork Group in the Ouachita Mountains. Third, I am grateful to the late D. Sambandam, the late D. Arumugam, and K. Swaminathan for their timely financial and logistical support during my college days in India.

Early research (1965–78)

• In compiling this book with emphasis on MTDs (Chapter 2: Mass Transport: Slides, Slumps, and Debris Flows), my educational background at the Civil Engineering Department of the IIT Bombay is crucial. This is because of graduate-level courses on soil mechanics, engineering geology, metallurgy, and field measurements of engineering properties of MTDs triggered by monsoonal floods every year. I am very grateful to my supervisor, the late Prof. A. Parthasarathy, who was an engineering geologist by training and who earned his DIC and PhD from the Imperial College and London University, respectively, in 1954 in the United Kingdom. He authored a textbook on Engineering Geology (Parthasarathy et al., 2013).

• I was greatly benefited from graduate-level courses on fluid mechanics taught by Prof. Iaakov Karcz and Fluvial Geomorphology taught by Prof. Marie Morisawa at SUNY Binghamton, New York (1972–73). I also learned the nuances of flume experiments from Iaakov Karcz. A flume study resulted in my first paper on flume experiments published in the Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Journal of the Hydraulics Division (Karcz and Shanmugam, 1974).

• I am thankful to my two fellow students G.L. Benedict and the late S.C. Ruppel for their help during my PhD research at the University of Tennessee (1974–78). Our publications include Shanmugam and Benedict (1978) on fine-grained carbonate debris flows, Shanmugam and Benedict (1983) on Manganese distribution in carbonate fractions, and Walker et al. (1984) on a model for carbonate to terrigenous clastic sequences.

Mobil research on mass transport, gravity flows, and bottom currents (1978–2000)

My tenure with Mobil Oil Company (1978–2000) is the primary source of data for this book. However, my research at Mobil also included oil from coal in Australia and New Zealand (Shanmugam, 1985c), porosity enhancement beneath erosional unconformities in the Prudhoe Bay reservoir, Alaska (Shanmugam and Higgins, 1988), tide-dominated estuaries in Ecuador (Shanmugam et al., 2000), among others.

• During my employment with Mobil (1978–2000), I worked in three Mobil research facilities (Fig. 2 under About the Author section):

1978–83: Mobil Field Research Laboratory, Duncanville, Texas.

1983–92: Mobil Dallas Research Laboratory, Farmers Branch, Texas. It is worth noting that this building was designed by a world-renowned architect I.M. Pei who also designed the Louvre Pyramid for the Musée du Louvre in Paris, France.

1992–2000: Mobil Technology Company, Dallas, Texas.

Mobil Oil Corporation was extremely generous in granting me permission to publish over 100 journal articles and 80 abstracts. Several of the petroleum-related case studies used in this book were formally reviewed and approved for external publication by Mobil management and partners (1978–2000). Those case studies that were published in peer-reviewed journals and those that were presented at national and international conferences are the primary source of data on core and outcrop, sandbody geometry, wireline logs, seismic profiles, and measured porosity and permeability values used in this book.

I extend my sincere gratitude to Mobil Technology managers (1978–2000): the late E.L. Jones, the late N.J. Guinzy, J.J. Wise, M.P. Ramage, M.G. Bloomquist, E.C. Griffiths, S.J. Moncrieff, R.P. Nixon, the late A.J. Koch, R.J. Moiola, D.M. Summers, S.E. Sommer, M.A. Northam, G.K. Baker, and J.E. Krueger. I am thankful to Mobil Vice President P.E. Luttrell for her constant support of my studies on deep-water systems and her enthusiasm for organizing deep-water sandstone workshops for Mobil affiliates and partners. My special thanks to R.J. Moiola, who guided my career in Mobil as my manager, mentor, colleague, coauthor, and friend. I am grateful to D.W. Kirkland who has been an inspiration throughout my career in Mobil. I thank Mobil colleagues J.E. Damuth, J.G. McPherson, S.B. Famakinwa, J.B. Wagner, R.D. Kreisa, J.W. Snedden, the late M.H. Link, P. Weimer, S. Gabay, J.F. Sarg, J.M. Armentrout, J. Helwig, J.K. Sales, and J.S. Wickham for stimulating discussions.

I am grateful to L.J. Aucrermann, B.K. Bowlin, S. Limerick, J. Zeng, and D. Prose who assisted me under the Mobil intern program on deep-water systems. My special thanks to M.K. Lindsey, who drafted most of my illustrations, for his creativity and patience. Mark Lindsey depicted my geologic perspectives of hybrid flows beautifully for my 1993 AAPG Bulletin article, which is reproduced on this book cover. I thank A.F. Long, N.D. Pine, J. Livermon, R. Gilcrese, C. Branson, and A. Gonzales for drafting; S.A. Kizer and D.L. Miller for photography; N. Houghton for petrography, B.J. Phillips, T.A. Allison, F.B. Roof, and C.M. Wall for assistance in the field and in laboratory work. I am indebted to Iaakov Karcz who introduced me to flume experiments. I thank John Sales for developing experimental small-scale duplex structure in soft plaster that was used in explaining the origin of sigmoidal deformation. I thank H.T. Mullins for providing samples of calciclastic sandy contourites from the northern Straits of Florida.

• For the first time, to understand mechanics of sandy debris flows and their deposits, a Mobil-funded experimental flume study was carried out at St. Anthony Falls Laboratory (SAFL), University of Minnesota (1996–98) under the direction of Prof. G. Parker. Results were published in two major articles (Shanmugam, 2000a, b ; Marr et al., 2001). I am grateful to G. Parker, J.G. Marr, and P.A. Harff for impressive experimental runs of sandy debris flows and related discussions.

• I am thankful to the following colleagues from Mobil Research and Development Corporation, other companies, and universities who were involved in the description of sediments and sedimentary rocks during 1974–2011 period:

• United Kingdom: C.E. Shepard, C.F. Stephens, P.H. Naylor, K.P. Dean, S.-J. Kelland, J. Mathews, F. Longworth, A. Turner, M. Slatford, G.W.J. Beamish, S.M. Mitchell, and J.E. Damuth;

• Norway: L.R. Lehtonen, T. Straume, S.E. Syevertsen, R.J. Hodgkinson, and R.J. Fife;

• Nigeria: W.E. Hermance, B.J. Welton, J.O. Olaifa, and U. Ewherido;

• Equatorial Guinea: S.B. Famakinwa, W.E. Hermance, and R.J. Hodgkinson;

• Gabon: T.D. Spalding, S.B. Famakinwa, and E. Delbos;

• France: R.J. Moiola and R.B. Bloch;

• Brazil: S.H. Gabay, A.E. Cunningham, W.B. Gardiner, D.O. Hurtubise, Celso Guirro, Paola Fontanelli, and the late Luiz Caddah;

• Gulf of Mexico: G. Zimbrick, T.D. Spalding, J. Fouts, J.M. Armentrout, K. Schindler, J. Caravella, T. Scott, R.D. Kreisa, and D.H. Rofheart;

• California: C.A. Clayton and R.D. Kreisa;

• Arkansas and Oklahoma: R.J. Moiola, H. Jamieson, R. Edington, C. Knutson, D. Prose, T. Stolan, and M. Barrett;

• Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York: J.E. Damuth and S.O’Connell for helping with the description of DSDP Leg 96 cores (Mississippi Fan);

• Ocean Drilling Program’s (ODP) Gulf Coast Repository in College Station, Texas: J.E. Damuth for assistance with core description at the Ida Green Cruise cores (Gulf of Mexico);

• China: Examination of karst topography near Guilin and Li River in understanding karst dissolution and breccia formation (Shanmugam, 2017d);

•  Ecuador: M. Poffenberger, and J. Toro Alava on tide-dominated estuarine facies;

• Australia: R.J. Gaulton on the Yallourn and Morwell open cut coal mines;

• New Zealand (North Island): R.A. Cook and K. Robinson on modern Kauri rain forests;

• Alaska: G. Zimbrick on fluvio-deltaic facies of the Prudhoe Bay oil field;

• Azerbaijan: Government and academic personnel.

I am deeply indebted to R.J. Moiola for his support and collaboration with all my studies of submarine fans throughout my career with Mobil (1978–2000). My field experience, gained from studies of ancient submarine fans with R.J. Moiola (Spain, Italy, the Ouachita Mountains, and the Annot Sandstone, SE France), with Garrett Briggs (the Ouachita Mountains), with Kenneth Walker (the Southern Appalachians, my PhD work at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, United States), and on modern submarine fans with J.E. Damuth at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (Mississippi Fan, DSDP Leg 96 cores), has greatly enhanced my understanding of modern and ancient submarine fans.

My sincere gratitude to the late Prof. George Devries Klein, Emeritus Professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who served as the Editor of Earth-Science Reviews and who handled my first review article on submarine fans for the journal (Shanmugam and Moiola, 1988). His publications have been a great source of inspiration for my research on deep-water sedimentation. Tributes to Klein were published in a Special Issue dedicated to George Devries Klein by the Journal of the Indian Association of Sedimentologists (JIAS) (Shanmugam, 2018d).

I must thank Prof. Emiliano Mutti for organizing a special field trip to the Eocene Hecho Group in the South-Central Pyrenees (Spain) in March 1981, as a consultant, for two Mobil geologists (R.J. Moiola and G. Shanmugam). Every night at dinner time, after a long, fruitful, and grueling day in the field, we would embark on lively and often heated debates on deep-water sedimentation that would last until the wee hours of the morning. These debates were the root cause of my passion for investigating the very foundation of the turbidite paradigm and submarine fans. As a consequence, my first two critical papers on submarine fans were: (1) Is the turbidite facies association scheme valid for interpreting ancient submarine fan environments? (Shanmugam et al., 1985a) and (2) Submarine fan models: problems and solutions (Shanmugam and Moiola, 1985a, b). Despite our professional feud, Emiliano and I have exchanged cordial emails to this day. Mutti’s most recent communication was on November 17, 2019, by which he sent me his recent reprint on Plumites (Mutti, 2019).

I am grateful to J.E. Warme for organizing field trips to study deep-water deposits in the San Diego area (La Jolla) in February 1980 for Mobil sedimentologists (R.J. Moiola and G. Shanmugam). I also thank the late T.H. Nilsen for organizing a special field trip to study deep-water turbidites in California in October 1992, as a consultant, for a Mobil geologist (G. Shanmugam).

Consultant research (2000–present)

1. India (Reliance-core): S.K. Shrivastava, B. Das, M. Acharya, M. Chowdhury, M. Santra, S.S. Roy, S. Gupta, A. Soman, S. Sharma, R. Das, S. Mushnuri, A. Kumar, and V. Yesudian for their assistance during core description (2004–08);

2. India (Reliance-field and seismic): Our field investigation of Godavari estuary near Yanam and Antarvedi (Andhra Pradesh) in August 2007 was assisted by S. Sharma and S.I. Arsalan, and of the Kakinada Bay in January 2008 was assisted by Sandeep Sharma, Chakradhar Rao Basa, Jyoti Rout, Amit Sinha, Sandeep Rawat, Hema Sharma, and Mahendra Thame. Sandeep Sharma also assisted in our study of RMS amplitude maps;

3. India (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation): S. Prabakaran;

4. India (Hardy): Ravi T. Venkatesawaran;

5. China [Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development (RIPED) PetroChina]: Coining Zoo, Wang Land, Li Ying, Sonata Wu, and Xiamen Zhao on deep-lacustrine facies (Zoo et al., 2012).

Tsunamite research (2004–present)

My personal interest on tsunamis was accelerated by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which hit the coast of Tamil Nadu in southeastern India on 26 December. My hometown (Sirkazhi), which is located about 12 km from the tsunami-devastated coast, provided immediate shelter for tens of thousands of tsunami victims. Color videos of the tsunami, shown on BBC and CNN Television from December 27, 2004 to January 5, 2005, were used for inferring flow transformation near the coasts (offshore) of Thailand, India, and Sri Lanka. I am grateful to Brock Adam McCarty of DigitalGlobe for granting permission to use an aerial image of Kalutara Beach in Sri Lanka. I thank many local individuals who narrated their eyewitness accounts of tsunami waves and who helped in digging trenches along the coast of Tamil Nadu to study the effects of tsunami on coastal sedimentation. I dedicate this paper to all those who perished (over 265,000) in 15 countries in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

In an attempt to trace the source of the genetic term tsunamite, I sought information from many colleagues worldwide. I would like to thank the following who responded promptly to my email queries: G. Racki, J. Bourgeois, T. Shiki, M. Cita, B. Pratt, G. van den Bergh, K. Rodolfo, M. Simms, S. Barnett, J. Morrow, D. Stow, A. Hurst, D. Gorsline, and G. Klein.

In publishing my paper The tsunamite problem (Shanmugam, 2006b), I thank the JSR reviewers from Australia (Ron Boyd and Brian Jones), New Zealand (Scott Nichol), and the editorial crew from Scotland (Colin North, Co-Editor), Canada (David Piper and Martin Gibling, Associate Editor), and the United States (John Southard and Melissa Lester) for their comments and help.

I thank the late N. Swedaranyam, T. Saraswathi (my sister), S. Thambidurai, and S. Murugan for their assistance during my 2005 field study of coastal deposits of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami in Tamil Nadu.

In publishing my paper Process-sedimentological challenges in distinguishing paleo-tsunami deposits (Shanmugam, 2012b), I thank Guest Editor Arun Kumar for inviting me to contribute this article. I wish to thank Journal Editor T. Murty for his suggestions on content during early stages of manuscript preparation in 2009. My sincere thanks to two anonymous reviewers for their detailed, critical, and helpful comments on the manuscript. I am grateful to Cliff Frohlich, The University of Texas at Austin, for providing photographs of tsunami emplaced boulders in Tongatapu Island, south-west Pacific.

Contourite research (1974–present)

I thank Rajat Mazumder, the volume editor of Sediment Provenance, for encouraging me to contribute a review chapter on contourites (Shanmugam, 2016b). I also thank both Tasha Frank and Marisa LaFleur, Associate Acquisition Editors (Elsevier), for their enthusiastic help with various issues. I am deeply indebted George Devries Klein, a sedimentologic pioneer on contourites and tidalites, for his total endorsement of science in this chapter and for his helpful editorial comments. I also thank A.J. (Tom) van Loon, who served as the Series Editor for Elsevier’s Developments in Sedimentology 60 on Contourites (Rebesco and Camerlenghi, 2008) for his meticulous editing of the manuscript. Chapter 8, Bottom Currents, of this book addresses the contourite problem.

I acknowledge with gratitude the following organizations and colleagues involved in various academic activities that are of relevance in my contourite research:

• My interest on provenance began with my research on sandstone reservoirs at Mobil Oil Company in 1978. As a consequence, I was an invited speaker at the NATO Advanced Study Institute Conference on Reading Provenance from Arenites held in Calabria, Italy (1984) by G.G. Zuffa. In a related conference volume edited by Zuffa (1985), my contribution dealt with Types of porosity in sandstones and their significance in interpreting provenance (Shanmugam, 1985b, c).

• My sedimentological research on deep-water bottom currents began in 1974 as a part of my PhD work on the Middle Ordovician of the Southern Appalachians in the United States (Shanmugam, 1978; Shanmugam and Walker, 1978, 1980) and has continued through my employment with Mobil Oil Company (Shanmugam and Moiola, 1982, 1983; Shanmugam, 1990a, b,c; Shanmugam et al., 1993a, b) to the present as an adjunct professor and as a consultant (Shanmugam, 2006a, 2008a, 2012a, 2013a, 2014a).

• As my manager and coresearcher, R.J. Moiola provided enthusiastic support for my contourite research throughout my employment with Mobil (1978–2000). As a Mobil colleague, J.E. Jed Damuth provided me historical information on contourite research at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University (New York) where he received his PhD under Bruce Heezen. I am indebted to numerous colleagues at Mobil and other oil companies, petroleum-related service companies, academic institutions, and government agencies for assisting me in core and outcrop descriptions worldwide during the past 40 years (Table 9.2).

• My first major paper on process sedimentology and reservoir quality of sandy contourites, which focused on the significance of traction structures in contourites following Heezen’s (1959) pioneering concept, was peer-reviewed by Charles Hollister for the AAPG Bulletin (Shanmugam, 1993a). I dedicate this paper to the late Charles Davis Hollister (1936–99), considered to be the father of Contourites (McCave, 2002), who died in a climbing accident while on vacation in Wyoming with his family at an untimely age of 63. His pioneering publications have greatly influenced my research during the past 40 years.

• In response to an invitation from R.D. Winn, Jr. and J.M. Armentrout, I (Shanmugam et al., 1995b) participated in the 1995 SEPM Core Workshop held in Houston, Texas. This study dealt with core examination of traction sedimentary structures indicating bottom-current reworking in the Gulf of Mexico.

• In response to an invitation from the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), I organized a deep-water sandstone workshop in Edinburgh, Scotland, for petroleum geoscientists from various countries in Europe in 1995 (October). This workshop utilized cores from the U.K. Atlantic Margin (Table 9.2, item 7) that contain deposits of sandy MTDs and bottom-current reworked sands (Shanmugam et al., 1995a).

• In response to an invitation from M. Rebesco, I contributed Chapter 5 (Shanmugam, 2008a) entitled Deep-water bottom currents and their deposits to the thematic volume on Contourites (Rebesco and Camerlenghi, 2008).

• In response to an invitation from A.J. (Tom) van Loon, I reviewed a book (Shanmugam, 2008d) entitled Economic and Palaeoceanographic Significance of Contourite Deposits, edited by Viana and Rebesco (2007), for Geologos (republished in Journal of Sedimentary Research).

• I also reviewed a book (Shanmugam, 2011a, b ) entitled Deep-sea sediments, edited by Hüneke and Mulder (2011) with Chapter 3 on Contourites, for Geologos (republished in Journal of Sedimentary Research).

• Since the 1970s, D.J.W. Piper and D.A.V. Stow have been helpul in my research on both fine-grained turbidites and contourites.

• In 2020, F.J. Hernández-Molina and S. de Castro, helped me with research material from IODP Expedition 339, Gul of Cadiz.

Density plumes and hyperpycnite research (2002–present)

I thank Prof. G.N. Nayak, CSIR Emeritus Scientist at School of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Goa University, Goa, India, who is also the President of the Indian Association of Sedimentologists, for a thorough and helpful review of my paper on deflected sediment plumes (Shanmugam, 2019d). I also thank the second reviewer Dr. Mayla Ramos-Vazquez for helpful review. I am grateful to Dr. John S. Armstrong-Altrin, National Autonomous University of Mexico, for handling my paper. I thank both Managing Editors of the journal, Prof. G.M. Bhat and Dr. Bashir Ahmad Lone, both of Jammu University, India, for their help with editorial matters.

I thank Dr. Huaixian Xu, Executive Chief Editor of Petroleum Exploration and Development (PED) for inviting me to contribute my article (Shanmugam, 2018c) for the Special Issue of PED in celebrating the 60th anniversary of RIPED. The year 2018 also marks the 10th anniversary of my association with RIPED.

I sincerely thank Prof. B. Charlotte Schreiber (University of Washington, Seattle) for her no-nonsense, critical, and helpful review comments on my paper The hyperpycnite problem (Shanmugam, 2018b). I am grateful to the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for their excellent collection of satellite and other images of sediment plumes triggered by river, tide, glacier, volcanic eruptions, cyclones, etc. I would like to acknowledge the following publishers, governmental and nongovernmental agencies, journals, and colleagues, for their help in granting permissions either formally or through their publication policies to reuse images:

1. American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG),

2. American Geophysical Union (AGU),

3. Cambridge Core and Global-Science Press,

4. Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), Rightslink,

5. Elsevier,

6. European Geosciences Union (EGU),

7. Geological Society of America (GSA),

8. Geological Society of London (GSL),

9. Indian Journal of Geo-Marine Sciences (IJMS),

10. J.G. McPherson,

11. John Wiley and Sons,

12. The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),

13. The U.S. National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC),

14. R.D. Kreisa,

15. Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM),

16. Springer Nature,

17. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,

18. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and

19. Wikipedia.

Sediment deformation and seismite research (1978–present)

I am thankful D.W. Kirkland for lending core slabs from the Permian Castile Formation, New Mexico and for his valuable discussion on the origin of microfolds. The Journal of Palaeogeography reviewers Prof. Yuan-Sheng Du (State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan), Prof. Tian-Rui Song (Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing), Dr. D.W. Kirkland, and an anonymous reviewer are thanked for their detailed and helpful comments that considerably improved the quality and clarity of my paper The seismite problem (Shanmugam, 2018b) paper.

Academic events (1968–present)

I benefited from my participation in the following academic events:

• As an invited coauthor of a book chapter (Shanmugam and Moiola, 1985) to the COMFAN 1 volume edited by Bouma et al. (1985a);

• As an invited participant in the NATO Advanced Study Institute Conference on Reading Provenance from Arenites, Calabria, Italy (1984);

• As an invited participant in the COMFAN II Meeting, Parma, Italy (1988);

• As an invited lecturer in the SEPM Pacific Section Short Course (Shanmugam, 1990b) held in San Francisco as part of the 1990 AAPG Convention on Deep-Marine Sedimentation, Depositional Models and Case Histories in Hydrocarbon Exploration & Development. Course organizers: G.C. Brown, D.S. Gorsline, W.J. Schweller.

• As an invited panelist in the 1997 (April) AAPG/SEPM Convention Debate, Dallas, Texas

Topic: Processes of Deep-Water Clastic Sedimentation and Their Reservoir Implications: What Can We Predict?

Moderator: H. E. Clifton.

Panelists: A.H. Bouma, J.E. Damuth, D.R. Lowe, G. Parker, and G. Shanmugam.

• I presented an invited lecture on John Sanders’ pioneering contributions at a conference in Troy, New York (Shanmugam, 2000b). I was invited by Prof. G.M. Friedman and George Devries Klein.

• Academic lecture tour of India on deep-water processes and sediment deformation (2016)

• Institutions:

RIL: Reliance Industries Ltd.

ISI: Indian Statistical Institute

IITB: Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

ITM: Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Annamalai University, Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu

• Contacts:

Mr. Bhagaban Das, Manager, Reservoir Characterization, RIL

Prof. Sarbani Patranabis-Deb, ISI, Geological Studies Unit

Prof. M. Radhakrishna, IITB, Earth Sciences

Prof. Santanu Banerjee, IITB, Earth Sciences

Prof. P. Shanmugam, IITM, Ocean Engineering

Prof. T. Ramkumar, Annamalai University, Earth Sciences

I thank the abovementioned Indian colleagues for organizing my lectures. I am grateful to RIL and ISI for absorbing domestic airline, ground transportation, and lodging expenses. I also thank students and participants for lively discussions.

• 2018: I presented a two-part lecture entitled Deep-Water Turbidites and Density Plumes at the Dallas Geological Society, International Dinner Event, Brookhaven Country Club, Dallas, Texas, November 14, 2018. https://www.dgs.org/events/2018/11/14/ Accessed August 17, 2020

• 2020. I presented a virtual lecture entitled The turbidite – contourite –tidalite – hybridite problem: Orthodoxy Vs Empirical Evidence behind the Bouma Sequence, organized by the indian Association of Sedimentologists. Virtual Lecture on Google Meet Platform. July 2, 2020 at 10:00 am (Indian Standard Time).

• 2020. I presented a zoom lecture entitled The turbidite – contourite –tidalite – hybridite problem: Orthodoxy Vs Empirical Evidence behind the Bouma Sequence". The Drifters VGT (Virtual Get-Together) Zoom Lecture organized by F. J. Hernandez-Molina, Dept. Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway, University of London (UK), July 27, 2020, Monday, 2.30 PM London (UK) Time. PowerPoint presentation.

• 2000-2020: I have been associated with the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Texas at Arlington, USA, as an adjunct professor since 2000. I taught undergraduate and graduate courses in sedimentology and stratigraphy during 2003-2004 period. I have routinely presented my research results in department seminars. I am grateful to Professor Emeritus John Wickham, Professor Emeritus Asish Basu, and Professor and Chairman Arne Winguth, for their support.

Editorial board member (2018–present)

As an editorial board member of the following three journals, I have benefited immensely on recent developments, and therefore I would like to thank the following:

1. Journal of Palaeogegraphy (JOPG)

Prof. Zeng-Zhao Feng, Editor-in-Chief, Beijing, China

Dr. Yuan Wang, Editor, Beijing, China

Dr. Min Liu, Editor, Beijing, China

Dr. Xiu-Fang Hu, Editor, Beijing, China

2. Petroleum Exploration and Development (PED)

Dr. Huaixian Xu, Executive Chief Editor of Petroleum Exploration and Development, Beijing, China

Dr. C. Zou, Editor, Beijing, China

Jesse (Song Lichen), Deputy Director, PED, Beijing, China

3. Journal of the Indian Association of Sedimentologists (JIAS)

Prof. Abhijit Basu, Indiana, United States, Editors-in-Chief Prof. G.M. Bhat, Jammu University, India, Managing Editor

Dr. Bashir Ahmad Lone, Jammu University, India, Managing Editor

JIAS dedicated a special issue to the memory of Prof. George Devries Klein with the following contributions:

1. Preface by G. Shanmugam

2. Post-modernism and climate change by Van der Lingen

3. Bioturbation and trace fossils in deep-water contourites, turbidites, and hyperpycnites: A cautionary note by G. Shanmugam

4. Petroleum potential of the West Coast of India by Naresh Kumar

5. Diagenetic evolution of onshore Campanian Sandstone, Ariyalur-Cauvery Basin by R. Nagendra

6. Reflections from the heavy mineral distributions of some Gondwana basins of extra-peninsular India by Hrishikesh Baruah, Ranjeeta Kar, Sarat Phukan, Pradip Kumar Das, Manab Deka, and Tulika Dey

7. Professor Virendra Kumar Srivastava by S.M. Casshyap and M. Raza

8. Robert Louis Folk by Kitty Milliken, Earle McBride, and Lynton Land

9. Robert Henry Dott, Jr. (June 2, 1929 to February 27, 2018) by Marjorie A. Chan and Steven G. Driese

Photographs

I thank Tom Roorda, Roorda Aerial, Port Angeles, Washington for aerial photo of Elwha sediment plume in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Professor Emeritus R.D. Hatcher, Jr., Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, for outcrop photo of SSDS from Israel. I thank John G. McPherson for providing aerial photographs of Dart River braid delta from New Zealand, and for photographs of alluvial fans from Death Valley, California.

Elsevier

This book is built on the foundation of datasets used in my two previous books by Elsevier (2006 and 2012) coupled with new data published in various journals and other publications since 2012 by myself and by other authors. Because I have used the same core, outcrop, seismic, petrophysical, and satellite database that I used in my previous two books published by Elsevier in 2006 and 2012. My sincere thanks to John Cubitt, Editor-in-Chief of Elsevier’s Handbook of Petroleum Exploration and Production series for valuable suggestions. I thank Susan Dennis, Associate Acquisitions Editor | Series (Elsevier Science Ltd., Oxford, United Kingdom), Derek Coleman, Senior Editorial Project Manager, Elsevier (Amsterdam), and the Elsevier production team (Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) for their help with the 2012 edition.

In publishing this third book for Elsevier, I thank Louisa Munro, Senior Acquisitions Editor, Aquatic Sciences Elsevier Limited, Oxford, United Kingdom, for inviting me to write this book and for providing logistical support. I would like to thank Nicholas Christie-Blick, Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, New York, and two other Elsevier reviewers of my book proposal for their constructive comments. I also thank Andrae Akeh, Senior Editorial Project Manager, Elsevier for help during the production of this book. In particular, I thank him for his organization and swift transfer of files to the production department. Importantly, both Louisa and Andrae have been very helpful with the necessary budgeting for 300 color figures.

This book was produced amid the challenging times of the coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India (February–October 2020). My special thanks to Elsevier Production Team in Chennai that consisted of R. Vijay Bharath and Kumar Anbazhagan—Production Managers, Sathya Narayanan—Copyrights coordinator, Vinod Kumar–Graphics, and M. Bhuvanaraj. I am deeply indebted to their dedication and meticulous attention to details.

Copyrights and permissions

I thank the following individuals for granting permission to reproduce figures: G.C. Brown, J.V. Gardner, S. Krastel, D.J.M. Macdonald, J.G. Marr, C.K. Paull, E. Mutti, A.R. Viana, C.S.L., Duarte, and A. Solheim. I acknowledge the following publishers and entities for help during the course of acquiring permission to use figures, tables, and data:

1. Copyright Clearance Center

2. Elsevier

3. Wiley-Blackwell

4. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

5. Springer

6. Cambridge University Press

7. Annual reviews, Inc.

8. Rand McNally & Company

9. Gulf Publishing Company

10. American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

11. Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM)

12. Geological Society of America

13. The Geological Society (London)

14. Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies

15. Minerals Management Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior

16. Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory

17. The Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies

18. U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

19. U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

20. U.S. National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC)

21. U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC)

22. U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

23. Ocean Drilling Program (ODP)

24. The American Meteorological Society

25. Planetary and Space Science Centre (PASSC), University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

26. Dave’s Landslide Blog

27. The Landslide blog (AGU) Blogosphere

28. Landslide database center at the University of Durham

29. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Editors and reviewers (1978–2020)

I would like to acknowledge a select group of world-renowned editors, associate editors, and reviewers who evaluated my contributions during the past 40 years:

1. J. Southard (Journal of Sedimentary Research)

2. P. McCarthy (Journal of Sedimentary Research)

3. C. North (Journal of Sedimentary Research)

4. P.J. Talling (Journal of Sedimentary Research)

5. G.A. Smith (Journal of Sedimentary Research)

6. G. Postma (Journal of Sedimentary Research)

7. D.J.W. Piper (Journal of Sedimentary Research)

8. Martin Gibling (Journal of Sedimentary Research)

9. O.H. Pilkey (Journal of Sedimentary Petrology)

10. Jean Lajoie (Journal of Sedimentary Petrology)

11. G. Kelling (Sedimentary Geology)

12. A.D. Miall (Sedimentary Geology and Earth-Science Reviews)

13. G.D. Klein (Earth-Science Reviews)

14. G.M. Friedman (Earth-Science Reviews and History of Geologic Pioneers)

15. André Strasser (Earth-Science Reviews)

16. R. Steinmetz (AAPG Bulletin)

17. J.A. Helwig (AAPG Bulletin)

18. S.A. Longacre (AAPG Bulletin)

19. K.T. Biddle (AAPG Bulletin)

20. N.F. Hurley (AAPG Bulletin)

21. E.A. Mancini (AAPG Bulletin)

22. G.M. Gillis (AAPG Bulletin)

23. M. Sweet (AAPG Bulletin)

24. Barry J. Katz (AAPG Bulletin)

25. D.G. Roberts (Marine and Petroleum Geology)

26. E.M. Moores (Geology)

27. H.T. Mullins