CARBONATE 3D Simulates the Growth of Atolls

Georg Warrlich, Dave Waltham and Dan Bosence, Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London
gwarrlich@hotmail.com

CARBONATE-3D is a program that simulates the development of carbonate depositional environments (like reefs, lagoons, sand shoals and submarine slopes) over geological time spans (thousands to millions of years) as a response to external drivers (like sea-level changes, sedimentation and erosion rates). Reef growth, erosion and sediment transport in a virtual carbonate environment are simulated in small time steps and the effects on the distribution of the sediments summed up over the time span of the simulation. These simulations can be compared to real world examples to enhance our understanding of how these natural systems work over time spans which are far too long to be observed by humans.

As some carbonate deposits have developed into groundwater or hydrocarbon reservoirs, understanding carbonate systems has economic implications for the finding and development of these water and energy resources.

IDL was used as the main development platform for our program CARBONATE 3D and IDL virtual machine for its distribution to users. Superior visualisation capabilities and programming functionalities led the SedTec research team (led by Dr David Waltham at Royal Holloway, University of London) to choose IDL as the preferred programming tool for the development of their stratigraphic forward models over 10 years ago. At present research continues with IDL at Royal Holloway with the advanced version CARB3D+ which also handles diagenetic changes of sedimentary strata.

The images above show animated model outputs of an atoll subject to a 3rd order sea level curve and a dominant wind direction from NW to SE.

Further information can be found here:
http://www.gl.rhul.ac.uk/sedtec/Georg/New_Website/C3D_main.htm

Warrlich, G.M.D., Waltham, D.A., Bosence, D.W.J., 2002. Quantifying the sequence stratigraphy and drowning mechanisms of atolls using a new forward modeling program (CARBONATE 3-D). Basin Research 14 (3), 379–400.

Warrlich, G.M.D., Bosence, D.W.J., Waltham, D.A., Wood, C., Boylan, A., Badenas, B., 2008, 3D stratigraphic forward modelling for analysis and prediction of carbonate platfrom stratigraphies in exploration and production. Marine and Petroleum Geology 25, p.25-58.