Nathaniel S. Ledbetter Ferrill
As a Ph.D. student, I am investigating regional trends in the texture, mineralogy, stoichiometry, and geochemistry of Llandovery dolomites across the Byron Formation of the Burnt Bluff Group across the Michigan Basin. Prior to joining the CPCL, I earned my B.S. at Trinity University in 2023 under Dr. Dan Lehrmann. During my time as an undergraduate student, I conducted several research projects with focuses on erosional mechanisms, petrography, isotope and trace element geochemistry, fluid inclusions, and U-Pb dating using LA-ICPMS. Study sites for my research have included south Texas, Saudi Arabia, and south China. My final years of research as an undergraduate centered around dolomitizing mechanisms within the Nanpanjiang Basin of China and sparked my interest in large-scale trends in dolomitization. My broader research interests include carbonate diagenesis, paleontology, basin analysis, thin-section petrography, and scanning electron microscopy.
Research
Carbonate platforms provide archives of chemical and paleoenvironmental change and include a record of post-depositional diagenetic environments. One of the most common diagenetic alterations of carbonate strata is the conversion of carbonate minerals to the mineral dolomite, forming the rock dolostone. The origin of dolomite, and the mechanisms which cause platform scale dolomitization is one of the major issues at the forefront of geological research and is subject to considerable controversy. In my research, I apply and integrate standard tools used to understand dolomitization such as thin-section petrography, scanning-electron microscopy, C-O isotopes, and XRD. Through analysis of multiple cores spanning across the Michigan Basin, the dolomitizing fluid and dolomitized intervals can be compared both vertically and spatially, allowing for a 3D analysis of dolomitization of the Byron Formation.
Links to Learn More
Ledbetter Ferrill, N.S., Ferrill, D.A. 2021. Influence of mechanical layering and natural fractures on undercutting and rapid headward erosion (recession) at Canyon Lake spillway, Texas, U.S.A. Engineering Geology 280, 105897, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2020.105897
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Li, X., Lehrmann, D.J., Luczaj J., Kelley B.M., Cantrell, D.L., Yu, M., Ledbetter Ferrill, N., Payne, J.L. 2022. Unraveling overprinted formation mechanisms of massive dolostone in the Lower Triassic sequence of an isolated carbonate platform in Nanpanjiang Basin, south China: Sedimentary Geology 440, 106240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sedgeo.2022.106240
Contact
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