The Geology of Stratigraphic Sequences

Andrew Miall has been Professor of Geology at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Toronto, since 1979, where his focus is teaching and research on the stratigraphy and sedimentology of sedimentary basins. His particular interest is in sequence stratigraphy, the sedimentology of nonmarine sandstones, and their characteristics as reservoir rocks for non-renewable resources, and the nature of the preservation of time in the stratigraphic record. He was the inaugural holder of the Gordon Stollery Chair in Basin Analysis and Petroleum Geology, which was founded in 2001. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1995. He retired at the end of 2020.
Andrew Miall was born and educated in Brighton, England, and completed his B.Sc. in Geology at the University of London in 1965. He emigrated to Canada in that year and joined the graduate research program in Arctic geology at University of Ottawa, gaining a Ph.D. from this work in 1969. He worked for several companies in Calgary and then joined the Geological Survey of Canada in Calgary in 1972 as a Research Scientist in the Arctic Islands section, working on a wide variety of regional basin studies. In 1977 he chaired the First International Symposium on Fluvial Sedimentology in Calgary, an initiative sponsored by the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists and which established a new theme of basic research endeavours carried forward by this major national society (the eleventh conference in the series returned to Calgary in 2017). Miall completed his Arctic work in the early 1980s after moving to Toronto, and has subsequently focused on field-based research in the Colorado Plateau area of the United States, together with projects in Asia and Australia. His work on the sedimentary facies, architectural-elements and facies models of fluvial deposits has been widely used, and he is a recognized authority on the theory and practice of sequence stratigraphy, and the historical evolution of the science of stratigraphy.
Reflecting his broader interest in energy and climate-change issues, from 1998-2013 Miall taught a popular science-for-non-scientists course at the University of Toronto entitled “Geology in Public Issues”, which deals with geological hazards, energy and water resources, and global change. From 2000-2004 Andrew Miall served as Canada’s representative to the NATO Science and the Environment Program’s “Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society”, during which time he assisted in the organization of several international workshops dealing with natural hazards.
Andrew Miall was Vice President of the Academy of Science of the Royal Society of Canada from 2005 to 2007 and President of the Academy from 2007-2009. He chaired the Program Committees which organized the Royal Society of Canada Annual Symposia on energy in 2003 and on water in 2006, and in 2009 he chaired the RSC Committee that held a one-day symposium in October to celebrate the International year of Astronomy, entitled “The universe and our place in it.” Andrew Miall has also served as a panelist at several symposia in the Program on Water Issues at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, on such topics as carbon sequestration, shale gas and Canada’s oil sands.
In the fall of 2010, Miall served in a committee of six Canadian scientists enjoined by Environment Canada with the task of improving environmental oversight and management of the Canadian oil sands. This committee submitted its report in December, 2010. In January 2011, He was appointed to the Alberta Environmental Monitoring Panel, tasked with making recommendations for a complete overhaul of Alberta’s environmental monitoring work, with an initial focus on the Oil Sands. The final report was delivered on June 30th, 2011. In both cases, the objective of these committees was to develop world-class environmental monitoring and reporting practices, aimed at improving the management of air and water pollution, as industrial development activity in the oil sands increases in the coming decades. Most of the recommendations of these panels have since been implemented, resulting in significant improvements in the management of water and air pollution issues in the Lower Athabasca region.
Andrew Miall is the author of several research-level textbooks. His “Principles of Sedimentary Basin Analysis”, first published in 1984, is now in its third edition. A second book, “The geology of fluvial deposits: sedimentary facies, basin analysis and petroleum geology” was published in April 1996. A third book “The geology of stratigraphic sequences” appeared in the fall of 1996. A revised second edition was published in May 2010, and incorporated much new work dealing with the origins of sequences. His new book, “Fluvial depositional systems” appeared in the Fall of 2013. A completely new text, “Stratigraphy: A modern synthesis”, was published in January 2016. The lavishly illustrated book “Canada Roc