The Joulters Ooid Shoal, Great Bahama Bank

Although Recent (Holocene) carbonate sands have been deposited during an extremely brief epoch of geologic time, their subsurface facies relationships may be complex. The development of ooid shoals in the Bahamas has been examined by coring and seismic profiling by Ball (1967), Buchanan (1970), Hine (1977), Harris (1979), Palmer (1979) and Hine et al. (1981). The studies document facies, sedimentary structures, vertical sequences and geometry of bank-margin ooid accumulations. It is these sedimentary features that are critical in our interpretation of ancient oolite deposits seen in outcrop or borehole cores.