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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 63 (1979)

Issue: 3. (March)

First Page: 554

Last Page: 554

Title: Utility of Diatoms in Petroleum Exploration: ABSTRACT

Author(s): Walter W. Wornardt, Jr.

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

Within the past decade diatoms have played a new and important role in the multidisciplined biostratigraphic approach to the search for petroleum. Diatoms have characteristics unique to the microfossil world. They are microplants; their tests are composed of silica; they live as sessile and vagile benthic and planktonic organisms; their optium environment is in the cool to cold water in the middle and high latitudes in addition to areas associated with nutrient-rich upwelling oceanic waters; and they are widely distributed geographically. Therefore, diatoms have been used biostratigraphically to date and correlate Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks in various geographic areas where they occur to the exclusion of other microfossils. They also serve as a check on other microfossil where they do occur together. They can be used to determine whether rocks are of marine, brackish, or nonmarine origin and to determine if these rocks were deposited in shallow or deep water. One of the most important biostratigraphic uses of diatoms is in dating various sparker lines on a sparker profile. They can also be used to define the limits of various types of zones and to determine important datum levels.

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Copyright 1997 American Association of Petroleum Geologists