SEDIMENTOLOGY AND STRATIGRAPHY IN THE 1950S TO MID-1980S - THE STORY OF A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE

Despite an august history of 150 years, sedimentology as a science has advanced most rapidly since about 1950. This rapid advance resulted f ront a change of sedimentology as a pure to all applied science. Econo mic incentives, particularly in the exploration for petroleum, spurred prodigious expansion and rapid advances in sedimentology. Major oil c ompanies began to realize that sedimentology was the key to success in exploration. Recognition of the enormous value of sedimentology as a key to the discovery of stratigraphic traps represented a turning poin t in the history of the science. The 1947 report of the Research Commi ttee of the American Association of the Petroleum Geologists, under th e leadership of Shepard W. Lowman, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, s tated that research in sedimentology is the most-urgent need in petrol eum geology. Process-response models and facies analysis dominated sed imentology. Convulsive and catastrophic events as sedimentological pro cesses gained acceptance. This paper concludes with the mid-1980s afte r which sequence stratigraphy revolutionized the study of sedimentary deposits. This account is a personal perspective related through perso nal involvement in scientific societies, technical journals, and resea rch.