沉积学的发展历程与未来展望

沉积学的概念自提出以来，其发展经历了：萌芽、初步形成、专业研究、总结提高、理论升华及学科渗透与综合 7个发展阶段，每一阶段都充分表现出，一方面受科学技术进步的影响，另一方面对全球经济的发展与进步又起到了不可忽视的推动作用，尤其是在各种沉积矿床和油气的寻找方面。随着地质勘探与开发实践的不断进行，已陆续在沉积体中发现了油气、煤、黄金、铀、金刚石、钾、水晶、铂、铝、锰、膏盐及天然气水合物等多种重要矿产，为全球经济的发展做出了不可磨灭的贡献。沉积学未来的发展在 7个方面表现出明显的规律性：层次上，由宏观向微观；方法上，由定性向定量；目的上，由理论向应用；形式上，由静态向动态；学科上，由单学科向多学科；手段上，由手工向计算机；领域上，由地区向全球发展的总体趋势。

REVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT AND PROSPECT OF SEDIMENTOLOGY

Over the past one and half centuries, sedimentology has been experiencing a hard development course from the beginning up to now. Comprehensively speaking, the development of sedimentology can be parted into seven phases: budding phase, initial formation phase, professional research phase, summary and enhancement phase, theoretic formation sublime phase, discipline crossing and integration phase. During the first phase (from 1830 to 1894), the Walther Law was the most important, which was not only used at that time, but also is being used now. During the second phase (from 1894 to 1931), sedimentology was formed into an independent branch of science. During the third phase (from 1931 to 1950), a lot of new conceptions and research methods were put forward and a series of books were published. During the fourth phase (from 1951 to 1970), the prominent advances were the patterns and interpretation of the formation and diagrammatization. During the fifth phase (from 1971 to 1980), sedimentological theory was summerized comprehensively. During the sixth phase (from 1981 to 1990), new theories and new viewpoints were put forward, which made this phase a flourish development stage. The seventh phase (from 1991 to now) is the discipline crossing and integration phase. The depth and extent of sedimentology were expanded by the new technologies and methods. The development of sedimentology in each phase showed that it could not only be affected by the enlightening of science and technology, but also has promoted the global industrial revolution and economic growth, especially in the aspect of each sediment ore deposit. With the progress of geological exploration and exploitation, many important ores were found in sediments, including oil and gas, coal, gold, uranium, diamond, potash, platinum, aluminum, manganese, gypsum, and gas hydrate. Sedimentology is one of the main basic branches of earth science and its highlights and fronts are moving to four topics: resource, environment, disaster, and global climate change. There are obvious laws on the seven aspects for the future progress of sedimentology: from being macroscopic to microscopic research scale; from being qualitative to quantitative research method; from theory to application on research purpose; from being static to dynamic research form; from being single to multiple research disciplines; using computer technology instead of manual; for research field, from regional to global consideration .