Abstract: Introduction of Symposium on Predictive Models for Earth Resources

George Devries Klein

During the last two decades, sedimentology has grown into a mature science with a predictive capability. That predictive capability has direct application in exploration for both energy minerals and metalliferous deposits. This growth and development of sedimentology are concurrent with two other major developments: (1) a shift in emphasis in international relations with a focus on the global distribution and use of energy minerals, metals resources, population, food resources, and pollution; and (2) the development of geology as a global science with a global predictive rationale. The simultaneous emergence of global geology and predictive sedimentology provides an opportunity for new exploration strategies to be applied over the next decade.

The SEPM symposium on predictive models for earth resources will review clastic and carbonate petroleum reservoirs, coal deposits, uranium deposits, sedimentary copper, lead-zinc, and gold deposits, and the relation of metallogenesis to global tectonics and sedimentation. These papers provide both a new look at sedimentary geology and a predictive basis for new exploration methods on a global scale.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90968©1977 AAPG-SEPM Annual Convention and Exhibition, Washington, DC