1. n. [Reservoir Characterization]

A widespread marine flooding surface that separates the underlying transgressive systems tract from the overlying highstand systems tract. The surface also marks the deepest water facies within a sequence. The maximum flooding surface represents a change from retrogradational to progradational parasequence stacking patterns. It commonly displays evidence of condensation or slow deposition, such as abundant burrowing, hardgrounds, mineralization and fossil accumulations. On wireline logs, the shales that immediately overlie the maximum flooding surface commonly have different characteristics than other shales and can often be recognized on the basis of resistivity, gamma ray, neutron and density logs. These shales can also be recognized by electrofacies analysis when the analysis is designed to do so.

See related terms: flooding surface,  parasequence,  sequence stratigraphy,  transgressive surface