Deltas vs. Rivers on the Shelf Edge: Their Relative Contributions to the Growth of Shelf-Margins and Basin-Floor Fans (Barremian and Eocene, Spitsbergen)

Author(s):  
R.J. Steel ◽  
J. Crabaugh ◽  
M. Schellpeper ◽  
D. Mellere ◽  
P. Plink-Bjorklund ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Steventon ◽  
Christopher Jackson ◽  
David Hodgson ◽  
Howard Johnson
Keyword(s):  

2020 ◽  
Vol 90 (8) ◽  
pp. 938-968
Author(s):  
Ariana Osman ◽  
Ronald J. Steel ◽  
Ryan Ramsook ◽  
Cornel Olariu ◽  
Si Chen

ABSTRACT Icehouse continental-shelf-margin accretion is typically driven by high-sediment-supply deltas and repeated glacio-eustatic, climate-driven sea-level changes on a ca. 100 ky time scale. The paleo–Orinoco margin is no exception to this, as the paleo–Orinoco River Delta with its high sediment load prograded across Venezuela, then into the Southern and Columbus basins of Trinidad since the late Miocene, depositing a continental-margin sedimentary prism that is > 12 km thick, 200 km wide, and 500 km along dip. The Cruse Formation (> 800 m thick; 3 My duration) records the first arrival of the paleo–Orinoco Delta into the Trinidad area. It then accreted eastwards, outwards onto the Atlantic margin, by shallow to deepwater clinoform increments since the late Miocene and is capped by a major, thick flooding interval (the Lower Forest Clay). Previous research has provided an understanding of the paleo–Orinoco Delta depositional system at seismic and outcrop scales, but a clinoform framework detailing proximal to distal reaches through the main fairway of the Southern Basin has never been built. We integrate data from 58 wells and outcrop observations to present a 3-D illustration of 15 mapped Cruse clinoforms, in order to understand the changing character of the first Orinoco clastic wedge on Trinidad. The clinoforms have an undecompacted average height of 550 m, estimated continental slope of 2.5° tapering to 1°, and a distance from shelf edge to near-base of slope of > 10 km. The clinoform framework shows trajectory changes from strong shelf-margin progradation (C10–C13) to aggradation (C14–C20) and to renewed progradation (C21–24). Cruse margin progradational phases illustrate oblique clinothem geometries that lack well-developed topsets but contain up to 70 m (200 ft) thick, deepwater slope channels. This suggests a high supply of sediment during periods of repeated icehouse rise and fall of eustatic sea level, with fall outpacing subsidence rates at times, and delivery of sand to the deepwater region of the embryonic Columbus channel region. Also, evidence of wholesale shelf-edge collapse and canyon features seen in outcrop strongly suggest that deepwater conduits for sediment dispersal and bypass surfaces for Cruse basin-floor fans do exist. The change to a topset aggradational pattern with a rising shelf trajectory may be linked to increased subsidence associated with eastward migration of the Caribbean plate. The Cruse-margin topsets were dominated by mixed fluvial–wave delta lobes that were effective in delivery of sands to the basin floor. The preservation of a fluvial regime of the delta may have been impacted by basin geometry which partly sheltered the area from the open Atlantic wave energy at the shelf edge. Ultimately, understanding shelf-edge migration style as well as process-regime changes during cross-shelf transits of the delta will help to predict the location of bypassed sands and their delivery to deepwater areas.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Si Chen ◽  
Hua Wang ◽  
Jianghao Ma ◽  
Tianhao Gong ◽  
Zhenghong Yu

<p>This study discusses the sedimentary flux, and sedimentary system source tracking on the shelf margins of Yinggehai (YGH) and Qiongdongnan (QDN) Basins, Northern South China Sea. The shelf margin clinoforms of YGH and QDN Basins, have grown since the Late Cenozoic (10.5 Ma), which generated more than 4 km-thick shelf prism above the T40 surface. By using the core, well drilling data, 2D and 3D seismic surveys, this study aims to: ① demonstrate the geometry morphology and architecture of the clinoforms, while the shelf margin trajectory (including the shelf-edge trajectory and toe of slope trajectory) showing down-flatting and rising patterns where the progradation and aggradation happened through the vertical evolution; ② estimate sediment supply values, load volumes, and their changes since the Late Cenozoic, predict ratio of the sediment flux across shelf-edge during their dynamic processes; ③ investigate the contradiction and correlation among the phenomena that sediments show distinctly increasing in flux, decreasing in grain size, and response delay of flux rate peak since 2-4 Ma. The preliminary results show that the vertical sediment accumulation rate increased significantly across the entire YGH and QDN Basin margin system after 2.4 Ma, with a marked increase in mud content that likely caused by long‐distance, alongshore currents with high content of mud during the Pleistocene. Furthermore, laterally, the estimated total sediment flux onto the margin shows a dramatic decline from west to east while moving away from the Red River depocenter, as well as a decrease in the percentage of total discharge crossing the shelf break in this same direction. The overall margin geometry shows a remarkable change from sigmoidal, strongly progradational and aggradational in the west to weakly progradational in the east of QDN Basin margin. The Late Cenozoic shelf margin growth, with its overall increased sediment flux, responded to global, high‐frequency transgressive‐regressive climate cycles during a falling global sea level and gradual cooling temperature in this icehouse period.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 1367-1388
Author(s):  
David O. Anomneze ◽  
Anthony U. Okoro ◽  
Norbert E. Ajaegwu ◽  
Eliseus O. Akpunonu ◽  
Izuchukwu I. Obiadi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 658-674 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.S. Flint ◽  
D.M. Hodgson ◽  
A.R. Sprague ◽  
R.L. Brunt ◽  
W.C. Van der Merwe ◽  
...  

Geology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (11) ◽  
pp. 1011-1014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daan Beelen ◽  
Christopher A.-L. Jackson ◽  
Stefano Patruno ◽  
David M. Hodgson ◽  
João P. Trabucho Alexandre

Abstract The geometry of basin-margin strata documents changes in water depth, slope steepness, and sedimentary facies distributions. Their stacking patterns are widely used to define shelf-edge trajectories, which reflect long-term variations in sediment supply and relative sea-level change. Here, we present a new method to reconstruct the geometries and trajectories of clinoform-bearing basin-margin successions. Our sequential decompaction technique explicitly accounts for downdip lithology variations, which are inherent to basin-margin stratigraphy. Our case studies show that preferential compaction of distal, fine-grained foresets and bottomsets results in a vertical extension of basin-margin strata and a basinward rotation of the original shelf-edge trajectory. We discuss the implications these effects have for sea-level reconstructions and for predicting the timing of sediment transfer to the basin floor.


Author(s):  
Morten Bjerager ◽  
Peter Alsen ◽  
Jørgen A. Bojesen-Koefoed ◽  
Tove Nielsen ◽  
Stefan Piasecki ◽  
...  

Data from the recently drilled, fully cored Blokelv-1 borehole and previous cored boreholes in the Upper Jurassic of Jameson Land, central East Greenland, are integrated with published field studies to address the depositional evolution of the Jameson Land Basin in the Oxfordian–Volgian. In Jameson Land, the succession represents a marine shelf-to-basin transect in a W–SW-dipping half-graben. Laminated organic-rich mudstones were deposited in the central deep parts of the basin and grade up-slope into bioturbated sandy mudstones. Extensive shallow marine – deltaic sand prograded from the western and northern basin margins and formed prominent sandy shelf-edge wedges. Sand-rich density flows initiated by periodic collapse of the shelf edge deposited massive sand bodies on the slope and basin floor; these sands were prone to post-burial remobilisation to form injectite bodies. Basin evolution was controlled both by relative sea-level changes, typically correlatable with regional and global sea-level curves, and by rift tectonics. During periods with high relative sea level, the organicrich muddy facies onlapped the sandy shelf environments; such periods of basinal expansion and onlap are recorded in the lower Oxfordian (Q. mariae Chronozone), the middle–upper Oxfordian (C. tenuiserratum – A. glosense Chronozones) and uppermost Oxfordian – upper Kimmeridgian (A. regulare – A. autissiodorensis Chronozones); the deepening, transgressive trend culminated in the mid-Kimmeridgian (A. eudoxus Chron). Marked progradation of the sandy shelf and associated deposition of gravity-flow sands on the slope and basin floor occurred in the early Oxfordian (C. cordatum Chron), the middle Oxfordian (C. densiplicatum Chron), the late Oxfordian (A. serratum Chron) and the early Volgian (P. elegans Chron). The basin architecture reflects periodic differential subsidence on the W- to SW-dipping fault block. The lower to middle Oxfordian is highly condensed in the east (<10 m) and thickens markedly towards the west (>300 m), reflecting accumulation during rift/fault-controlled block rotation. The upper Oxfordian – Kimmeridgian, in contrast, shows a broadly symmetrical distribution and records uniform regional subsidence.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document