Captions for photos
(I follow the order of photos as you have laid them out on each page, moving down each column in turn,
taking each column in turn from left to right.
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1) The three major kinds of sedimentary basins, from left to right, 1) extensional basins, 2) basins generated
by crustal loading (foreland basins), 3) basins generated along strike-slip faults (a pull-apart basin).
2) The evolution of stratigraphic terminology, using an outcrop of the Cretaceous succession of the Book
Cliffs, Utah, as an example: left: conventional formational nomenclature, from the 1940s-1950s; centre:
facies analysis interpretation, from the 1960s and 1970s; right: sequence nomenclature from the 1980s.
3) An erosional hollow, of the type developed by the deep scour that takes place at the confluence of river
systems or at a point of flow convergence downstream from a major bar. Hawkesbury Sandstone (Triassic),
near Sydney, Australia.
4) Fossil desiccation cracks from an ancient lake margin, Old Red Sandstone (Devonian), northernmost
Scotland.
5) The Bridport Sands, one of the Jurassic reservoir sands of the Wytch Farm Field, Dorset coast, England.
6) Climbing ripples, glacial outwash deposits, Pleistocene, near Ottawa, Canada
7) Tidal bedding: current ripples showing reversals in flow direction and drapes of silt and mud. Ordovician,
near Ottawa, Canada
8) A glacial erratic. A boulder of Grenville metamorphic rocks resting on the Paleozoic carbonates of the
Niagara Escarpment, near Collingwood, Ontario.
9) Trace fossils in the making: invertebrate burrows on a modern tidal flat, Moray Firth, Scotland
10) Active grain-flow sediment transport on the front of a growing eolian dune, Great Sand Dunes National
Preserve, near Alamosa, Colorado
11) Close-up of a sequence boundary: the Sauk-Tippecanoe contact, Ottawa River, near Cumberland,
Ontario. The coin (a quarter) is resting on microbreccia that sits on the unconformity surface, which shows
small scale erosion and karstification.
12) Lion’s Head, Ontario. A stretch of the Niagara Escarpment that faces onto Lake Huron, Bruce Peninsula.
13) Exposure of the Hawkesbury Sandstone (Triassic), Cape Solander, south of Sydney, Australia. Part of a
6-km long, continuous exposure (see publications page).
14) Great Sand Dunes National Preserve, near Alamosa, Colorado
15 A sequence boundary: the Sauk-Tippecanoe contact, Ottawa River, near Cumberland, Ontario. The
boundary is at the colour change in the centre of the view.
16) Lion’s Head, Ontario. A stretch of the Niagara Escarpment that faces onto Lake Huron, Bruce Peninsula.
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17) At the head of Betts Cove, Newfoundland, one of the world’s best exposure of the lower crust and
mantle.
18) With Nick Eyles (right) on the summit of Gros Morne Peak, Newfoundland.
19) A desert deflation surface. Gobi Desert, western Gansu Province, China
20) One of the world’s most important oil source rocks: Kimmeridge Shale (Jurassic), at Kimmeridge bay,
Dorset, UK.
21) Eugenia Falls. Niagara Escarpment, near Collingwood
22) Fluvial fining-upward cycles. Eureka Sound Group (Paleogene), Ellesmere Island, Arctic Canada.
23) Coarsening-upward cycle, as imaged on a typical gamma-ray log.
24) Two superimposed sets of current ripples formed in a fluvial backwater. Beaufort group, Karoo Basin,
South Africa.
25) The city of Toronto, viewed from Ontario Place.
26) Aerial view of transverse dunes, Gobi desert, western Gansu Province, China. The sun is shining strongly
from the left on the dune faces. Dark patches are damp interdune hollows.
27) Gyrfalcon Bluff, an exhumed Devonian, stromatoporoid reef, Banks Island, Arctic Canada
28) Crossbedded Paleozoic sandstones used as building stones. Langevin Block, Ottawa. The curvature of the
crossbedding indicates that the upper block is upside down.
29) Cliffs of Grenville-age granite. Western Brook Pond, Gros Morne park., Newfoundland.
30) A modern, active barchan dune. Gobi Desert, western Gansu Province, China
31) Marine Pelecypods, Lower Cretaceous Hassel Formation. Banks Island, Arctic Canada
32) Joint sets in Ordovician limestones, exposed by low water levels on the shores of Georgian Bay,
Craigleith, Ontario.
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33) Lulworth Cove, Dorset, UK, showing folded Jurassic strata in the “Purbeck Disturbance”
34) A fluvial sand bar, Cambro-Ordovician sandstone, Hull, Quebec. Note dipping accretion surfaces
denoting lateral bar growth.
35) Triassic-Jurassic fluvial and lacustrine deposits overlain by a basaltic lava flow. Near Parrsboro, Nova
Scotia
36) Nonmarine sandstones and conglomerates of the Horton Group (Carboniferous), near Aberdeen, Cape
Breton Island
37) The Miall family business: critical dismantling of false paradigms, motor cars, etc. Near Wollongong,
Australia.
38) Block diagram illustrating the development of successor basins and overlap sequences in areas of terrane
amalgamation (after Bluck, 1991).
39) Parting lineation in Carboniferous fluvial sandstones at Joggins, Nova Scotia
40) Permian fluvial sandstones on the north shore of Prince Edward Island. In the distance, the same sands,
reworked by wind and waves, are accumulating as modern dune deposits.
41) Mount Yamnuska, at the front of the Rocky Mountains, near the Trans-Canada Highway, west of
Calgary. Here, Cambrian carbonates are thrust over Cretaceous clastics. The fault place lies at the base of the
cliffs.
42) Crossbedded and rippled sandstones used as part of a stairway. East entrance to old Mining Building,
University of Toronto campus.
43) Fluvial sandstone, Carboniferous, Joggins, Nova Scotia, showing a flat bedding plane formed under
plane bed conditions, scoured into by turbulent erosion associated with the formation of a ripple train.
44) Trace fossils in the making. Bird tracks, a seagull feather and fish-scale debris at the edge of a small
drainage gully, on the beach in northern Prince of Wales Island.
45) Dipping surface at the front of a large eolian dune, showing small slump features. Nava Sandstone
(Jurassic), Arizona.
46) Thin-bedded turbidites of the Halifax Group, Halifax, NS. Part of the Meguma terrane, formed on the
continental margin of what is now Morocco.
47) A fossil tree trunk with roots. Carboniferous, Joggins, Nova Scotia.
48) View along the axis of a trough-crossbed set, Permian fluvial sandstones, Prince Edward Island.
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49) Aerial view of a meandering river, near Pink Mountain in NE British Columbia.
50) A debris flow made up of limestone clasts in a fine-grained matrix. At the foot of the paleocliff, Walcott
Quarry, Burgess Shale, near Field, British Columbia
51) Angular unconformity between Silurian shales and Devonian sandstones, Siccar Point, Scotland. This is
one of the classic exposures of an angular unconformity seen by James Hutton in the late 18th century, and
which helped Hutton to formulate his concepts of geological time and the duration of geological processes.
52) Fluvial sandstones with superimposed sets of trough crossbedding. Axel Heiberg Island, Arctic Canada.
53) Crossbedded sandstone, Cretaceous, Pink Mountain, northeastern British Columbia
54) Thin-bedded siltstone and shales with ripples. Burgess Shale, at the foot of the paleocliff, Walcott
Quarry, near Field, British Columbia.
55) Silurian shallow-water carbonates and evaporites of the Arctic Platform, northeastern Somerset Island,
Arctic Canada.
56) A fossil log, Paleogene Eureka Sound Group, Ellesmere Island, Arctic Canada
57) Cavernous porosity in a stromatoporoid reef deposit, Cairns Formation (Devonian). This is one of the
major reservoir units in the subsurface of Alberta. The photo is of a block of the limestone on display outside
the office of the Geological Survey of Canada in Calgary.
58) Crossbedding in the Hawkesbury Sandstone (Triassic), near Sydney, Australia.
59) A slump channel filled with massive sandstone. Hawkesbury Sandstone (Triassic), near Sydney,
Australia
60) The speakers at the symposium held on energy and the Kyoto Protocol, University of British Columbia,
Vancouver.
61) Mount Rundle, Alberta, composed of Devonian and Mississippian carbonates. This view is from the
north. The town of Banff is hidden in the trees at the foot of the mountain.
62) An outcrop of Carboniferous deltaic deposits over which has been superimposed seismic wavelets drawn
at the same scale. The point is to illustrate the coarse stratigraphic resolution of the seismic reflections used
in the petroleum industry.
63) Superimposed planar crossbed sets, Cretaceous Isachsen Formation, Banks Island, Arctic Canada.
64) On the beach, northern Prince Edward Island.