Leonard P. Alberstadt, Chair

Ph.D. Oklahoma, 1967

Paleontology and Carbonate Rocks

email:  leonard.p.alberstadt@vanderbilt.edu

General Interests

     Len Alberstadt’s interests are centered on paleontological/carbonate systems problems as well as general historical geology.

Current Research

     Alberstadt’s research over the past several years has been on subsurface stratigraphy of Lower Paleozoic rocks of the Black Warrior Basin with comparisons throughout the United States, especially in regions around the margins of the North American continent. Presently he is conducting research on Ordovician ooids in Mississippi and Ordovician and Mississippian reefs and mudmounds in Tennessee aimed at understanding their diagenetic histories. These rocks are studied using standard petrographic techniques as well as cathodoluminescence petrography. Other techniques to document trace element and isotopic compositions are also being employed where possible.

     All of this work is aimed at fully under-standing the lower Paleozoic history of the southeast.  

   What Students Do

     Most of his student’s thesis research closely parallels Alberstadt’s own work on Lower Paleozoic sedimentological and paleontology-ical problems in Tennessee and adjoining states.

  Selected Publications

Alberstadt, L.P., 1994. Alexander Winchell’s Preadamites - A case for dismissal from Vanderbilt University, Earth Science History, v. 13, p. 97-112.

Alberstadt, L.P., 1993.  Oomoldic porosity and unusual diagenesis in a Middle Ordovician limestone: Abs. Geol. Soc. Am., Boston.

Alberstadt, L.P. and Repetski, J., 1989.  A lower Ordovician sponge/algal facies in the Southern United States and its counterparts elsewhere in North America, Palaios, v. 4, p. 225-242.

Alberstadt, L.P., *Colvin, G., and *Sauve, J., 1986.  Ordovician platform, slope, and basin facies in subsurface of southern North America: Amer. Assn. Petrol. Geol., Bull., v. 70, p. 559 (abstr.)

Alberstadt, L.P., 1979.   The brachiopod genus Platystrophia. U.S. Geol. Survey, Prof. Paper 1066-B, p. B1-B20, 7 plates.

Alberstadt, L.P. and Walker, K., 1975.  A receptaculid- echinoderm pioneer community in an Ordovician reef, Lethaia, v. 9, p. 261-272.

Walker, K. and Alberstadt, L.P., 1975.  Ecological succession as an aspect of structure in fossil communities, Paleobiology, v. 1, p. 238-257.

Alberstadt, L.P., Walker, K., and Zurawski, R., 1974.  Patch reefs in the Carters Limestone (Middle Ordovician) in Tennessee, and vertical zonation in Ordovician reefs, Geol. Soc. America, v. 85, p. 1171- 1182.

*student