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1 Center for Lithospheric Studies, University of Texas at Dallas, P.O. Box 830688, Richardson, Texas 75083-0688; kxl015500{at}utdallas.edu
2 Center for Lithospheric Studies, University of Texas at Dallas, P.O. Box 830688, Richardson, Texas
3 Center for Lithospheric Studies, University of Texas at Dallas, P.O. Box 830688, Richardson, Texas; mcmec{at}utdallas.edu
4 Center for Lithospheric Studies, University of Texas at Dallas, P.O. Box 830688, Richardson, Texas
5 Center for Lithospheric Studies, University of Texas at Dallas, P.O. Box 830688, Richardson, Texas 75083-0688
6 Center for Lithospheric Studies, University of Texas at Dallas, P.O. Box 830688, Richardson, Texas
7 Center for Lithospheric Studies, University of Texas at Dallas, P.O. Box 830688, Richardson, Texas
Keumsuk Lee received a B.S. degree in mathematics (1994) and an M.S. degree in geological oceanography (1999) from Kunsan National University, South Korea. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in geophysics in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Dallas. His main research interests are seismic sequence stratigraphy and reservoir characterization using ground-penetrating radar data.Xiaoxian Zeng received his B.S. degree in geophysics from Peking University and his Ph.D. in geosciences from the University of Texas at Dallas. He is currently a research associate at the University of Texas at Dallas. His research interests include three-dimensional (3-D) imaging and velocity model building, with application to both seismic and ground-penetrating radar data.
George A. McMechan received a B.A.Sc. degree in geological engineering from the University of British Columbia in 1970 and an M.Sc. degree in geophysics from the University of Toronto in 1971. He is currently the Ida Green Professor of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Dallas. He has published more than 200 technical papers and, in 1997, received the Virgil Kauffman gold medal from the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. His main research interests are wavefield imaging, 3-D seismology, reservoir characterization, ground-penetrating radar, and parallel computing.
Charles D. Howell Jr. is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Dallas, studying high-resolution siliciclastic sequence and allostratigraphy. Peripheral interests include ichnology, paleotopography, sediment body geometry, kinematic analysis, and structure at regional and subregional scales. He received his B.Sc. degree from Southern Methodist University in 1999. He has worked on many field projects in siliciclastic and carbonate systems in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Grand Cayman, Montana, offshore Gulf of Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming.
Janok P. Bhattacharya is a professor in geology at the University of Texas at Dallas. His research interests include deltaic sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy, the local control of structure on stratigraphy, and reservoir architecture of clastic depositional systems. He received his B.Sc. degree in 1981 from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, and his Ph.D. in 1989 from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Following a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council postdoctoral study at the Alberta Geological Survey in Edmonton, Janok worked for the Bureau of Economic Geology at Austin and ARCO Research in Plano, Texas, before joining the University of Texas at Dallas. He is an AAPG Southwest Section Distinguished Educator and an AAPG Distinguished Lecturer, and he was Technical Program chair for the 2004 AAPG Annual Meeting in Dallas.
Fanny D. Marcy earned a bachelor's degree in geophysics from the University of Strasbourg and a master's degree in petroleum geosciences from Institut Français du Pétrole in Paris. She is a seismic interpreter for Gaz De France and works on exploration and production and gas storage projects.
Cornel Olariu holds a B.S. in geological engineering from University of Bucharest and an M.S. in geosciences from the University of Texas at Dallas. He worked for 4 years with the National Institute for Marine Geology and Geoecology (Romania) prior to starting graduate studies at the University of Texas at Dallas where he is now a Ph.D. student. His main interest is in modern and ancient delta sedimentology and stratigraphy, but he also works on sequence stratigraphy and numerical modeling projects.
Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) measurements, in conjunction with outcrop sedimentology, were carried out at Murphy Creek reservoir in the Upper Cretaceous Turonian Wall Creek Member of the Frontier Formation in Wyoming. The objectives were to apply GPR to map geometrical details of a top-truncated lowstand delta front and to estimate the volumes of the prograding bar deposits of the delta lobe. Eleven GPR profiles totaling about 4400 m (14,435 ft) were acquired using 50-MHz antennas on a coarsely spaced, two-dimensional grid of lines lying parallel and perpendicular to the average depositional dip. Ground-penetrating radar reflections were detected from within the outcrop to a depth of about 10–15 m (33–49 ft). Four southerly dipping major surfaces identified in the GPR data are correlated with the boundaries of progradational delta-front facies, stacked as distal mouth-bar deposits, in the outcrop. The major boundaries correspond to lithological changes between relatively clean sandstones that are interpreted to have been deposited during floods with high sediment supply, alternating with bioturbated sandstones and mudstones deposited during interflood periods with correspondingly low sedimentation rates. These two lithological units, which also correspond to the two main GPR facies, repeat at least three times with no change in dominant average sand-grain size. Subsequent erosion by transgressive ravinement caused the significantly truncated lowstand delta long after the sandstones were deposited. The bar assemblage volume at successive stages of growth is estimated using measurements from the outcrop and the GPR data. The migrating bars have an estimated average half-length of 650 m (2132 ft); a lower bound on the average volume of the bar is 3.9 x 106 m3 (1.37 x 108 ft3). As the volume of the bars increases, the bar deposits appear to have a landward as well as a basinward component of accretion.
This article has been cited by other articles:
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  B. K. Vakarelov and J. P. Bhattacharya Local tectonic control on parasequence architecture: Second Frontier sandstone, Powder River Basin, Wyoming AAPG Bulletin, March 1, 2009; 93(3): 295 - 327. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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K. Lee, R. Szerbiak, G. A. McMechan, and N. Hwang A 3-D ground-penetrating radar and wavelet transform analysis of the morphology of shoreface deposits in the Upper Cretaceous Ferron Sandstone Member, Utah AAPG Bulletin, February 1, 2009; 93(2): 181 - 201. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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 M. R. Gani and J. P. Bhattacharya Basic Building Blocks and Process Variability of a Cretaceous Delta: Internal Facies Architecture Reveals a More Dynamic Interaction of River, Wave, and Tidal Processes Than Is Indicated by External Shape Journal of Sedimentary Research, April 1, 2007; 77(4): 284 - 302. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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K. Lee, G. A. McMechan, M. R. Gani, J. P. Bhattacharya, X. Zeng, and C. D. Howell Jr. 3-D Architecture and Sequence Stratigraphic Evolution of a Forced Regressive Top-Truncated Mixed-Influenced Delta, Cretaceous Wall Creek Sandstone, Wyoming, U.S.A. Journal of Sedimentary Research, April 1, 2007; 77(4): 303 - 323. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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K. Lee, M. R. Gani, G. A. McMechan, J. P. Bhattacharya, S. L. Nyman, and X. Zeng Three-dimensional facies architecture and three-dimensional calcite concretion distributions in a tide-influenced delta front, Wall Creek Member, Frontier Formation, Wyoming AAPG Bulletin, February 1, 2007; 91(2): 191 - 214. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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