Approaches of paleocurrent direction analysis

Paleocurrent direction analysis is an important aspect of sedimentology and paleoenvironment reconstruction. The paper presents two major categories of paleocurrent direction analysis, which was classified according to the avaiable information, such as rock composition, heavy mineral analysis, the various sedimentary structures, sedimentary facies, seismic facies and so on, one is qualitative method, and the other is semi-quantitative and quantitative method. Meanwhile, the principle, application, advantages and disadvantages of each method were described in detail. It is worthy to note that the suitable method shoud be chosen to conduct the paleocurrent direction research and specific geological background should be thinked over, reasonable conclusion should be drawn only through the combination of various analysis.