The Neuquen Basin of northern Patagonia provides an excellent case study in basin analysis and sequence stratigraphy. The basin is one of the largest petroleum provinces in South America and includes a dramatic record of relative sea level changes as well as a unique and globally important palaeontological record. Understanding this region is also central to unravelling the history of the Andes. The latest developments in the study of the area have been combined in this volume to give an integrated series of case studies that document the structural, igneous, sedimentological and palaeontological history of the region from the Triassic to the Recent. This publication provides an introduction into this fascinating region as well as a resource that includes the most complete and up-to-date studies of the area.

This book provides an overview of newly gathered material focusing on the opening and closure of The Neuquén Basin. The Neuquén Basin contains the most important hydrocarbon reservoirs in Argentina and therefore is characterized by a profound knowledge of the sedimentation mechanisms and closure times. During the last 10 years a considerable amount of new information has been produced that illustrates a complex evolution that involves more than one synrift stage during its evolution, an aborted sag phase associated with the inception of a first foreland basin in late Early Cretaceous times, two extensional destabilizations in the Late Cretaceous-Paleocene and late Oligocene times and a Neogene magmatic expansion coetaneous to a last mountain building. These processes have produced a polyphasic complex structure that exhumed the rich sedimentary record that characterizes the basin.

Over the last ten years, seismic and sequence stratigraphic studies have emphasized the role of worldwide fluctuations in sea level in controlling patterns of sedimentation. Widely recognized cycles of coastal onlap are thought to have been caused by such global changes. This postgraduate and reference text contains contributions from an international team of specialists. The book is based upon an IAS meeting which focused attention on the situation at active plate margins, covering three major themes: the underlying mechanics and rates of relative sea-level change at active plate margins; the interaction of eustatic and tectonic processes at modern margins; recognition of the products in the sedimentary record and possible criteria for distinguishing global eustatic from local tectonic effects. This book is intended for those studying and working in sedimentology, basin analysis, exploration geophysics and petroleum geology.

This book offers many examples of calcareous microfossils and describes a new microfaunistic record in Argentina. These selected papers of the 11th Argentine Paleontological Congress include micropaleontological studies on material of different geological ages from several sites in Argentina and Colombia. The authors highlight several geological findings and explain the paleoenvironmental changes in Argentina and Colombia.

It has been increasingly realized by sedimentologist in the petroleum industry and academia that integration of ichonological information into sedimentological models, and vice versa, is one of the main means by which we can improve our understanding of ancient depositional environments. This volume aims to provide an analytical review of yhe ichnology of all major depositional environments and the use ichnology in biostratigraphic and sequence stratigraphic analysis, as well as highly refined palaeeoenvironmental studies. The remit of the book is achieved through a combination of review articles and novel research papers that outline methodologies and protocols for improving our understanding of ancient palaeoenvironments. Trace fossils from microscopic borings to dinosaur footprints are considered.