Determine and quantify the depositional and neoichnological processes operating in modern micro-tidal clastic shoreline systems, compare to ancient micro-tidal shoreline systems, and evaluate the preservation potential of depositional facies and ichnofacies
Determine the effects on reservoir quality produced by
burrowing and trace-making organisms and plant rooting
Determine the effects geometry and internal
architecture on the reservoir properties of clastic shoreline systems
Prepare a photographic reference atlas of modern
micro-tidal depositional environments along the Texas Gulf Coast,
including satellite, aerial, oblique aerial, and ground-level
photographs, maps, quantitative
3-D geometries, representative cores, outcrops, high-frequency seismic
data, ground-penetrating radar data, and well-logs, and type
subsurface oil and gas field examples
Evaluate the impact of global and local changes in sea
level on the evolution and morphology of beach/barrier island and other
shoreline systems
Provide a
stimulating academic environment for geoscience students
Provide geoscience project experiences for Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi
geoscience students
Provide employment and financial aid for for geoscience students at Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi
Prepare geoscience students at Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi for future employment
Provide job placement
opportunities for
Division student researchers
Community outreach to the local geoscience community by providing seminars and training workshops
Community outreach to the local high schools by providing mentoring and research opportunities for students and teachers
Community outreach to the
geoscience community by supporting the outreach efforts of local
geological
societies
James R.
Garrison, Jr., Egon T. Weber, II, Sara Potter Miller,
George McMechan and Xiaoxian Zeng (2009) Ground-penetrating Radar study
of North Padre Island, Texas: Implications for barrier island internal
architecture, models of micro-tidal barrier island growth, and Gulf of
Mexico sea-level cyclicity: Journal of Sedimentary Research (in press).
James R. Garrison, Jr. and Henk, B. (2009) Ichnology of micro-tidal incised-valley fill deposits: An evaluation and comparision of the ichnology of a Cretaceous incised-valley system within the Upper Ferron Sandstone, East-central Utah and the neoichnology of the Pleistocene-Holocene Nueces River Incised Valley, Texas Gulf Coast: Journal of Sedimentary Research (in press).
Garrison, James R., Jr. and Sara Smelley (2007) Recovery of infaunal crustacean colonies following a period of rapid sedimentation and defaunation: a neoichnological examination following beach rejuvenation on the south side of Packery Channel, North Padre Island, Texas: Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions, 57, 305-317. (download pdf)Weber. Egon T., Richard Hay, and James R. Garrison, Jr. (2007) Magnetotelluric investigation of the Pleistocene Nueces Incised Valley, Mustang Island, Texas: Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions, 57, 775-782. (download pdf)
Garrison, James R., Jr., Bo Henk, and Rachael Creel (2007) Neoichnology of the micro-tidal Gulf Coast of Texas: implications for paleoecological and paleoenvironmental interpretations of the clastic rocks of the Cretaceous Western Interior Basin, U.S.A.: 2007 SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology) Research Conferrence: Ichnological Applications to Sedimentological and Sequence Stratigraphic Problems, Price, Utah, May 21-25, 6 p. (download pdf)
