Carbonate Mud-Mounds: Their Origin and Evolution

Mud-mounds are build-ups of biogenic carbonate sediment and are economically important as hosts of lead-zinc mineralization as well as oil and gas deposits. This is the first book to investigate the structure, origin and evolution of carbonate mud-mounds. It reviews the different mechanisms, principally microbial and detrital, of mud-mound formation; and examines in detail the major changes in mud-mound type and occurrence through geological time. The major part of the book, written by an international team of authors, contains case studies of mud-mounds from the Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic drawn from around the world.