Paleontologic data
Exploring for Oil and Gas Traps | |
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Series | Treatise in Petroleum Geology |
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Part | Predicting the occurrence of oil and gas traps |
Chapter | Applied paleontology |
Author | Robert L. Fleisher, H. Richard Lane |
Link | Web page |
Store | AAPG Store |
Basic paleontologic data
The basic data for applied paleontology consist of records of species occurrences in samples. Sample data can be arrayed in stratigraphic sequences for biostratigraphic analysis or in a geographic array for evaluating paleoenvironments. The two approaches are frequently combined. In order of increasing precision, fossil occurrences can be expressed in terms of the following:
- Records of species present or absent
- Relative abundances, usually expressed as categories (e.g., rare, common, abundant)
- Actual counts of individual specimens for each species
Other types of data
Paleontologic data of other sorts may be useful in applied studies. These include, among others, assigned color scale values for evaluating thermal maturation based upon conodonts or organic-walled microfossils; vitrinite reflectance (Ro) values; and observations on, or measurements of, significant specific morphologic characters of the fossils (see Morphometric and particle analysis).