Advances in the Understanding and Interpretation of Carbonates

This Short Course Notes volume contains extended abstracts of talks and posters presented at the two-day SEPM event ‘Advances in the Understanding and Interpretation of Carbonates’ held before the 2023 International Meeting for Applied Geoscience & Energy (IMAGE) in August of 2023.  The purpose of the meeting was to showcase the latest in carbonate research that has advanced the fundamental science and addressed applied industry problems.  The technical program was centered around four key carbonate research themes: 1) From Carbonate Sediments to Sequences presents recent high-resolution work in the Modern/Recent and discusses the implications for carbonate preservation and heterogeneity in the deep-time rock record; 2) Deep Water Carbonates highlights new carbonate slope-to-basin models and in particular brings awareness to the presence of deep bottom currents that can significantly influence deep water deposition and erosion; 3) Visualization and Quantification of Carbonates demonstrates the utility of high-resolution imagery, innovative sampling and processing technology, seismic techniques, and forward modeling to gain new perspectives and quantify carbonate depositional morphologies, diagenetic overprints, and controls on stratigraphic architecture; and 4) Carbonate Diagenesis and Pore Systems illustrates the strengths of developing approaches such as rare earth elements and clumped isotopes in understanding carbonate diagenetic processes and stresses the importance of integrating multiple datasets to fully unravel complex fluid flow histories.  This abstract volume is a comprehensive foundation of resources for those interested in cutting edge carbonate topics and applicable to both academic research and industry settings.