GEOM12

Sedimentary basins are erosional remnants comprising hundreds to thousands of meters thick strata and preserved in regionally widespread, natural or fault-controlled depressions in the crystalline bedrock. They are represented from all tectonic environments and contain Earth's deposits of coal, oil and gas. They are therefore of great economic importance.
Within the geological basic research sedimentary basins are of paramount importance, because its strata are natural climate archives and contain the fossils we build knowledge about evolution and mass extinction on. Also today's research on climate changes and sea level changes in the Earth's history requires in-depth knowledge of how sedimentary basins are developed and how to interpret and model their stratigraphic structure.
GEOM12 is a course at the advanced level. Through lectures and field trips, the course initially gives an in-depth knowledge of tectonic controls on sedimentary basins followed by a series of lectures on marine and terrestrial sedimentary facies. We practice then, theoretically and practically, the techniques and methods used in both academia and industry in order to adequately describe stratigraphic structure and basins development history, ie. sequence stratigraphic analysis and geophysical investigation in boreholes. These methods form the basis for predicting petroleum occurrences and to define reservoirs for CO2 storage, or to explore the geothermal potential.

During the course, we make an excursion to Stevns Klint, Denmark, to study one of the major rock formations of northern Europe - the Northwest European Chalk Group - and a week-long excursion to the Austrian Alps near Salzburg in order to connect knowledge from lectures and exercises to natural rock exposures. The course concludes with a literature-based, individual project essay in which students link their knowledge from the course and which constitute an important part of the final grade.