Carbonate Sediments and Rocks Under the Microscope: A Colour Atlas

More than half of the world's petroleum is to be found in carbonate rocks, for example in the Middle East, the former USSR and in North America. These rocks show a bewildering diversity of grains and textures, due in part to the wealth of different fossil organisms which have contributed to carbonate sedimentation, and in part to a wide variety of diagenetic processes which can radically modify textures and obscure the depositional fabric.

Careful petrographic study with a polarising microsc...