Publications

While changes in elemental chemistry are routinely used to define stratigraphic correlations in the petroleum industry, no publications that relate defined chemical stratigraphy to physical correlations have been found for fluvial systems. Here, chemostratigraphy is applied to Permian fluvial sediments within the Beaufort Group of the Karoo Basin in South Africa and a correlation between three logged sections is defined. This correlation is tested against physical chronostratigraphic correlations achieved using Heli-LiDAR data, providing a high resolution correlation between two sections 7 km apart, and mapping of sandstone cliffs using Google Earth producing a correlation between sections 25 km apart. The chemostratigraphic and physical chronostratigraphic correlations are in close agreement in both the 7 km and the 25 km-spaced sections. The thickness of the study interval and spacing of sections is analogous to published chemostratigraphy studies on subsurface sequences, thereby ground truthing the use of chemostratigraphy for correlation in subsurface fluvial systems that are to some degree analogous to the Beaufort Group sediments of this paper.