In geology, a platform is a continental area covered by relatively flat or gently tilted, mainly sedimentary strata, which overlie a basement of consolidated igneous or metamorphic rocks of an earlier deformation. Platforms, shields and the basement rocks together constitute cratons.

It is also common practice to use the term platform as a very general term for a sequence of shallow water carbonate platform. Carbonate platforms can develop in almost any tectonic setting, but they are particularly common along passive margins. Many oilfields produce from sediments deposited along carbonate platforms.

Various types of carbonate platforms are recognised - these include (but are not restricted to) rimmed shelf, ramp, epiric platforms, isolated platforms and drowned platforms.

[edit] See also

• List of shields and cratons

[edit] References

• Parker, Sybil P. (Ed.). 1997. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Geology and Mineralogy. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Tucker, Maurice E. 1990. Carbonate Sedimentology. Oxford: Blackwell Science.

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