Differential faulting in a narrow rift basin influenced by synchronous strike-slip motion: The Liaodong Bay sub-basin, offshore Bohai Bay Basin, China

2021 ◽  
Vol 124 ◽  
pp. 104853
Author(s):  
Nan Jia ◽  
Lei Huang ◽  
Chiyang Liu ◽  
Di Li ◽  
Changgui Xu
Lithosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Liguang Mao ◽  
Xianzheng Zhao ◽  
Shixun Zhang ◽  
Yumeng Su ◽  
Fengming Jin ◽  
...  

Abstract The Bohai Bay Basin in East Asia is a rift basin created by Cenozoic subduction of the oceanic Pacific plate beneath the Asia continent. Many prior studies suggest that the basin was initially formed in the Paleocene with the development of several NNE-trending extensional grabens, but subsequently impacted by right-lateral shear along these existing NNE-trending structures in the middle Eocene, transforming the Bohai Bay Basin into a transtensional basin and producing EW-trending grabens in the Bozhong and the northeastern Huanghua depressions. However, how this transformation occurred remains to be fully understood. Based on seismic and drilling data, we herein investigated the fault structures, basin architecture, and evolutionary stages of the Huanghua Depression in the central-west Bohai Bay Basin to examine the strain partitioning and evolution mechanism during the Paleogene syn-rifting stage. The results reveal that the Huanghua Depression is composed of three structurally distinctive zones, namely, a dextral transtensional, a NW-SE extensional, and a N-S extensional zones from southwest to northeast, which are separated from each other by two transfer zones. The NW-SE extensional zone is interpreted as a horsetail structure on the northern termination of the dextral transtensional zone. This dextral transtensional zone and the Tan-Lu Fault zone to the east served as strike-slip boundaries within which EW-trending depressions such as the northeastern Huanghua and Bozhong depressions formed in the middle Eocene.


2020 ◽  
Vol 132 (11-12) ◽  
pp. 2572-2586 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Huang ◽  
Chi-yang Liu ◽  
Jun-feng Zhao ◽  
Dong-dong Zhang

Abstract In rift basins with superposed strike-slip deformation, the structural style of wrench elements and the roles they play in synrift architecture and evolution are important, poorly understood issues for basin analysis and hydrocarbon exploration. The NE-SW–striking Tan-Lu fault zone, located in eastern China, runs through the Liaodong Bay subbasin within the Cenozoic Bohai Bay Basin and experienced dextral strike-slip motion during the later synrift stage of the basin (ca. 40 Ma to 23 Ma). Investigations of the Liaodong Bay subbasin indicate that rift-fault reactivation and wrench-fault development during strike-slip reactivation were strongly controlled by the distribution and geometry of preexisting rift faults, and local synrift basin inversion, induced by strike-slip reactivation of a preexisting graben during a later synrift stage, was a significant manifestation of synchronous strike-slip motion modifying synrift architecture and evolution. Moreover, synrift basin inversion within the Liaodong Bay subbasin manifested in two ways. First, stronger inversion occurred along the restraining bends of preexisting extensional faults. This induced uplift of the footwalls of graben-controlling faults, leading to deformation characterized by abundant shortcut thrusts and folds. The Liaodong uplift formed via this mechanism, triggered by strike-slip movement along the Tan-Lu fault zone at ca. 40 Ma. Second, weaker inversion induced by newly formed, subvertical, strike-slip faults occurred near the central part of the graben, with the characteristics of positive flower structures. Although inversion was limited to a very local area along a narrow fault zone, it substantially modified the basin’s physiography. In this rift system, coincident with local inversion-induced uplift, large-scale, rift-related subsidence occurred beyond the inversion belt within the flanking graben, leading to complexity and variety in intrabasinal structural deformation and filling, and exerting a complex influence on hydrocarbon prospects. This model of synrift basin inversion has profound implications for the interpretation of inversion structures and basin dynamics in any rift basin with superposed strike-slip deformation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 835-849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guangzeng Wang ◽  
Sanzhong Li ◽  
Zhiping Wu ◽  
Yanhui Suo ◽  
Lingli Guo ◽  
...  

Sedimentology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (6) ◽  
pp. 2117-2148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yingchang Cao ◽  
Yanzhong Wang ◽  
Jonathan Gordon Gluyas ◽  
Huimin Liu ◽  
Haining Liu ◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
Vol 153 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 866-886 ◽  
Author(s):  
FUSHENG YU ◽  
HEMIN KOYI

AbstractModelling results and seismic interpretation illustrate that the Cenozoic evolution of the Bohai Bay Basin (BBB) can be divided into different stages. A transtensional phase during Paleocene – early Oligocene time created NE-trending strike-slip faults and E–W-trending normal faults which were driven roughly by N–S–extension, making an angle of 25° with the strike-slip faults. Seismic data interpretation yields evidence that inversion phases occurred within the NE Xialiaohe Depression of the greater Bohai Bay Basin. This inversion phase is attributed to rotation and partial inversion that occurred during late Oligocene time, leading to formation of inversion structures along the NE part of Tanlu Fault. This episode is attributed to an anticlockwise rotation of the eastern part of the BBB driven by the convergence between the Pacific and Eurasian plates. The tectonic scenario described was simulated in scaled analogue models, which were extended by pulling two basement plates away from each other. Partial inversion was simulated by rotation of one of the plates relative to the other. Model results show many of the features observed in the BBB. Our model results are used to argue that, unlike the two-episode extension and whole-basin inversion models previously proposed for the BBB, a single N–S-aligned extension followed by anticlockwise rotation accounts for the Cenozoic evolution of the BBB and produces some of the structural complexities observed in the basin.


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