MAHMOUD, SALAH E.
The University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, TX

Abstract: The Impact of Refinement of Quantitative Palynostratigraphic Interpretations on High-Resolution Sequence Stratigraphic Analyses.

After detailed quantitative palynological analyses of subsurface core samples from the middle Cretaceous of northern Egypt, very marked and correlatable vertical relationships were observed between the changes in abundance and diversity of marine organic walled microplankton and terrestrial miospores. This work comprises more refinement of quantitative palynological analyses in order to give more precise and correct interpretations as whether these changes are resulting from changes in the water depth, palaeodepositional setting, palaeoecological or palaeoclimatological changes. The application of this technique enables the sequence stratigrapher to avoid misinterpretations such as the wrong prediction of a marine regression while the main reason of quantitative change is due to palaeoclimatic changes. Moreover, the observed changes were highly correlatable between nearby boreholes. This refinement of results helps improve the use of quantitative biostratigraphic techniques in integrated sequence stratigraphic interpretations, primarily for, the refinement of palaeobathymetric prediction and secondly to help in palaeoenvironmantal interpretation and high resolution correlation of time and facies even in intervals not correlatable by other methods. Subsequently, this will help estimate potential hydrocarbon plays more accurately.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90918©1999 AAPG Southwest Section Meeting, Abilene, Texas