Date of Award

Summer 8-2018

Degree Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Geography and Geology

Committee Chair

Mark Puckett

Committee Chair Department

Geography and Geology

Committee Member 2

Frank Heitmuller

Committee Member 2 Department

Geography and Geology

Committee Member 3

Tony Stuart

Committee Member 3 Department

Geography and Geology

Abstract

Eastern Alabama is an area of interest due to the transition from the Gulf Coastal Plain to the Atlantic Coastal Plain. Coastal Plain investigations have been sparse compared to research conducted in the oil rich areas down dip in the Gulf of Mexico. A sequence stratigraphic framework using the T-R cycle methodology of Embry (2002) has been established by integrating surface and subsurface lithologic data with biostratigraphic zonations into Petra ®. High sedimentation from the ancestral Chattahoochee River and lower relative sea-level formed an additional depositional sequence within the Santonian-Campanian aged Blufftown Formation in eastern Alabama. The sequence is approximately late Santonian to early Campanian age and occurs in the sandier basal Blufftown Formation. The late Santonian to early Campanian aged sequence is also marked by sandy concretions in the outcrops. The contact between the Blufftown Formation and the Cusseta Sand is only a facies boundary and not a sequence boundary. There is a sequence boundary in the mid-Campanian Cusseta Sand characterized by sediment bypass and an unconformity. The lower-middle Campanian in eastern Alabama had lower relative sea-level and sediment bypass, which contributed to formations being diachronously deposited throughout the Coastal Plain of Alabama. The Arcola Limestone Member and time-equivalent strata identified in eastern Alabama show the differing sediment accumulation rates between the outcrop belt and downdip within the same formation. The occurrence of the V. quadrialira, A. plummeri, and R. calcarata Taxon Range Zones has been integrated into the sequence stratigraphic framework in eastern Alabama. The stratigraphic placements of these useful ostracod and planktonic foram taxon range zones show major depositional variations in the timing of Cretaceous sequence stratigraphic units in central to eastern Alabama. This work has contributed to a better understanding of Upper Cretaceous Gulf Coastal Plain deposition in eastern Alabama.

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