Anatomy of a Paleozoic Basin: The Permian Basin, USA By any standard, the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico is a "super basin." With cumulative oil production of nearly 40 billion barrels (Bbbl) and annual production of nearly 2 Bbbl, it's currently one of the most important hydrocarbon-producing basins in the world. More than 29 Bbbl of this production have come from conventional (carbonate and sandstone) reservoirs, about 75 percent from carbonate reservoirs. Approximately 9-10 Bbbl of the basin's cumulative oil production have come from unconventional targets-primarily organic-matter-rich mudrocks and associated facies-during the last 10 years. The Permian Basin contains perhaps a greater volume of these mudrocks than that of any other basin, a major reason for its current global prominence among hydrocarbon-producing basins. The Permian Basin also contains one of the most extensive data sets in terms of wells drilled, cored wells, and adjacent outcrop analogs, providing a basis for studies that not only helps define the distribution of hydrocarbons but also serves as an excellent laboratory for examining basin-forming processes.This two-volume Bureau of Economic Geology Report of Investigations and AAPG Memoir contains 26 papers covering a breadth of Permian Basin topics, including 4 papers on the basin's structural geology, tectonics, and Precambrian geology; 4 papers on its paleontology and biostratigraphy; 16 on its sedimentology and stratigraphy; 1 on its reservoir systems; and 1 that provides a history and synthesis of the major depositional and deformational events that formed the basin. The goal of this set of papers is to capture, in a single publication, the wealth of information and knowledge about Permian Basin geology that has been generated over the 60 years that have passed since John Galley's early comprehensive paper on the basin in 1958.

In August 1990, Project 233 of the International Geological Correlation Program hosted an international conference in G6ttingen/Giessen, Germany. Discussions were focused on the Tectonothermal and Stratigraphic Evolution of the Central European Orogens. The meeting marked the first opportunity for completely open scientific exchange following the recent political reformations in central Europe. This exciting new atmosphere of international cooperation resulted in presentation of a wealth of information which was new to scientists from both sides of former political boundaries. It was apparent that a unique opportunity was available to prepare a systematic overview in a volume dealing with the geology of Central Europe. The present book represents an outgrowth of this conference, but is not merely a compilation of the papers presented in G6ttingen/Giessen. Instead, it represents a coordinated volume designed to present a balanced, comprehensive view of our present understanding of the tectonothermal and stratigraphic evolution of the Central European orogens. We gratefully acknowledge the help of the national funding agencies, who have financed much of the research work summarized in this book, and of the Interna tional Geological Correlation Programme (IGCP, project no. 233) which provided and helped to finance the organisational framework. We are indebted to Springer-Verlag for thorough copy-editing and production of this book, and we sincerely appreciate the efforts of all the reviewers whose com ments have greatly helped to improve the quality of this volume. We also thank the various contributors for their diligence and perseverance in manuscript preparation.

This is the first volume in the English language to cover the entire range of the geology of Thailand since the joint Thai-US account by Brown et al. exactly 60 years ago. Over this period there has been a phenomenal growth in interest in this core area of SE Asia. This has been led by geologists in Thailand, but with important and highly significant input from geologists based elsewhere in Asia and in Europe, Australasia and North America. Some of that research was prompted by commercial considerations, since Thailand has important energy and mineral resources, while other research has sought to understand better the stratigraphic and structural history, including the plate-tectonic story which Thailand's rocks reveal. This new volume seeks to bring together all of this knowledge into a single accessible book; it is the work of an international team drawn from Thailand, Japan, Australia, USA, Canada, Germany and the UK.

The extinction that wiped out 95% of the living species at the end of the Paleozoic era can be explained by the fact that when it happened, all landmasses were one continent, Pangea, with an inner ocean, the Paleo-Tethys. This ocean included the richest n

This volume brings together state-of-the-art reviews of the non-biostratigraphic and biostratigraphic data that are used to define and correlate Permian time intervals. It includes analyses of Permian radio-isotopic ages, magnetostratigraphy, isotope-based stratigraphy and timescale-relevant biostratigraphy. It is the first book devoted to this subject and represents the cutting edge of Permian time-scale research.

The Permian was a remarkable time period. It represents the maximum stage of Pangean continental assembly, includes a major global climatic shift from glacial to nonglacial conditions (icehouse-greenhouse transition), and is ter minated by one of the most profound faunal/floral extinction events in the Earth's history. In addition, Permian oceans, although poorly understood, must have had some quite unique characteristics. Permian seas reached the most extreme values of carbon, sulfur, and strontium isotopic ratios ever achieved in Phanerozoic time, and the isotopic ratios of all three elements abruptly returned to more "normal" values at, or very close to, the Permo Triassic boundary. Finally, the Permian is marked by an abundance of important sedimentary mineral resources. It has large fossil fuel concentra tions (coal, oil, and natural gas), enormous phosphate reserves, and very extensive evaporite deposits, including gypsum, anhydrite, and halite, as well as a variety of potash salts. Study of the Permian has been hampered, however, by a number of factors. These include a scattered geologic literature (presented in a variety of languages), a confusing regional and global stratigraphic framework (based, in part, on inadequate type sections), and largely provincial, often poorly correlatable faunas. All have contributed to the sparsity and inadequacy of overviews of this critical geological interval. The two volumes attempts to bring together some of the widely scattered observations about these fascinating rocks, at least for the northern (pre dominantly nonglacial) parts of Pangea.