Download Free Syndepositional Deformation In Steep Walled Carbonate Margins Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Syndepositional Deformation In Steep Walled Carbonate Margins and write the review.

Syndepositional deformation is common in steep-walled carbonate platforms and is typically manifested as large, open-mode fractures and normal faults. Despite the recognition of syndepositional features and their importance in steep-walled carbonate platform systems worldwide, the controls behind the development and the distribution of early-formed deformation are still poorly understood. There remains a gap in knowledge with regards to the relationships between mechanical properties of carbonate rocks and facies type, age and early diagenesis, which hinders our ability to systematically test and evaluate potentials controls on the development of early deformation. This work investigates (1) how facies type, depositional setting, diagenetic alteration, and age affect rock strength in Pleistocene carbonate rocks; (2) how carbonate platform geometry impacts the development of early deformation; and (3) the control that progradation to aggradation (P/A) ratio and carbonate rock property heterogeneities has on the development of syndepositional deformation. This research utilizes a combination of outcrop-based work and numerical modeling of steep-walled carbonate platforms to aid in identifying and evaluating the controls on the development of early-formed deformation. Mechanical rock properties tied to key facies, depositional setting, age, and diagenetic alteration were characterized from field measurements and laboratory analysis on samples collected from the Island of West Caicos on the Turks and Caicos platform,. Results suggest that rock strength in unburied Pleistocene carbonate rocks is controlled by cement percentage and, to a lesser extent, facies type, where reef facies are stronger than grain dominated facies. Increases in cementation tied to subaerial exposure and calichification is strongly tied to increases in unconfined compressive strength (UCS). Our observations on West Caicos are best explained by periods of long repeated subaerial exposure (and ensuing cementation from early meteoric diagenesis) and brief marine inundation consistent with the climatic conditions of the Pleistocene Epoch, when high-frequency, high-amplitude sea-level oscillations occurred. The observations and rock properties collected on West Caicos were used to populate the material database within the numerical models, allowing for realistic simulation of syndepositional deformation. Numerical models were constructed using ELFEN®, a finite element modeling program that allows for the development of discrete fracture and fault development. Our numerical modeling results suggest that platform geometry, specifically the presence of a high-relief vertical reef wall, and changes in P/A ratio are primarily controls on the development of early-formed deformation. To a lesser extent, facies partitioning and juxtaposition control the intensity, distribution and propagation of deformation. The development of syndepositional deformation in steep walled carbonate platforms is largely a byproduct of the lack of a confining stress in the seaward direction. This leads to the development of a tensile stress state that is prone to failure by open-mode fractures and faults. These deformation features form under the sole application of gravity, in the absence of differential compaction of basinal sediments or external perturbations (e.g. regional tectonics, active faults, etc.), highlighting the syndepositional origin of deformation. Results demonstrate that carbonate platforms that have a vertical to near vertical reef wall and steep angle slopes are routinely modified by syndepositional deformation. These parameters are thus primary controls on platform architecture, stratal geometries through time, and development of preferred failure and fluid flow pathways.
Syndepositional deformation features are fundamental components of carbonate platforms both in the subsurface and in seismic-scale field analogs. These deformation features are commonly opening-mode, solution-widened fractures that can evolve into extensional faults, and reactivate frequently through the evolution of the platform. They also have potential to behave as fluid flow conduits from the earliest phases of platform growth through burial and uplift, and can be active during hydrocarbon generation. As such, diagenetic alteration in the margins of these carbonate platforms is often intense, may demonstrate a preferential spatial relationship to the deformation features rather than the depositional fabrics of the strata, and may impact the permeability development of reservoir strata near deformation features. This study focuses on a syndepositional graben known as the Cave Graben fault system in the Yates Formation of Rattlesnake Canyon in the Guadalupe Mountains, and investigates the distribution of dolomite around the faults and associated opening-mode fractures, in an effort to understand the control the Cave Graben faults exert on fluid flow through the platform margins. Two generations of dolomite are identified on the outcrop: a fabric retentive dolomite located in the uppermost facies of the platform, and a fabric destructive dolomite that forms white, chalky haloes around syndepositional deformation features. The first generation of dolomite is dully luminescent and has very small crystal sizes, as well as a low trace element concentration and an 18O-enriched stable isotopic signature compared to Permian marine carbonate ratios. This dolomite is interpreted to have formed from penecontemporaneous refluxing of a concentrated lagoonal brine, and shows little fault control on its distribution. The second generation of dolomite is brightly luminescent and has much larger crystal sizes, as well as a higher trace element concentration and a slightly 18O-depleted isotopic signature compared to the first generation of dolomite, though it is still enriched in 18O compared to Permian marine carbonate. This dolomite is interpreted to have formed in a burial environment due to the transport of concentrated brines from the overlying evaporites through syndepositional deformation features. Overall, this study suggests that, once open, syndepositional deformation features may become the primary fluid conduit through otherwise impermeable strata, and may control the distribution of diagenetic products over a long period of geologic time. It provides valuable insight into the interaction of syndepositional faults and fractures and fluid flow, and may improve understanding of diagenesis in analogous subsurface carbonates reservoir intervals.
The study of sediments and sedimentary basins in terms of their tectonic environment requires a multidisciplinary approach and has increasingly drawn both techniques and objectives from fields outside sedimentology. Studies presented in this volume range across a wide spectrum from the analysis of sedimentary sequence architecture at basin scale down to the chemical properties of individual grains, and include studies from a range of tectonic settings.
Modern seismic data have become an essential toolkit for studying carbonate platforms and reservoirs in impressive detail. Whilst driven primarily by oil and gas exploration and development, data sharing and collaboration are delivering fundamental geological knowledge on carbonate systems, revealing platform geomorphologies and how their evolution on millennial time scales, as well as kilometric length scales, was forced by long-term eustatic, oceanographic or tectonic factors. Quantitative interrogation of modern seismic attributes in carbonate reservoirs permits flow units and barriers arising from depositional and diagenetic processes to be imaged and extrapolated between wells. This volume reviews the variety of carbonate platform and reservoir characteristics that can be interpreted from modern seismic data, illustrating the benefits of creative interaction between geophysical and carbonate geological experts at all stages of a seismic campaign. Papers cover carbonate exploration, including the uniquely challenging South Atlantic pre-salt reservoirs, seismic modelling of carbonates, and seismic indicators of fluid flow and diagenesis.
A comprehensive and richly illustrated overview of the Gulf of Mexico Basin, including its reservoirs, source rocks, tectonics and evolution.
Historically, submarine-mass failures or mass-transport deposits have been a focus of increasingly intense investigation by academic institutions particularly during the last decade, though they received much less attention by geoscientists in the energy industry. With recent interest in expanding petroleum exploration and production into deeper water-depths globally and more widespread availability of high-quality data sets, mass-transport deposits are now recognized as a major component of most deep-water settings. This recognition has lead to the realization that many aspects of these deposits are still unknown or poorly understood. This volume contains twenty-three papers that address a number of topics critical to further understanding mass-transport deposits. These topics include general overviews of these deposits, depositional settings on the seafloor and in the near-subsurface interval, geohazard concerns, descriptive outcrops, integrated outcrop and seismic data/seismic forward modeling, petroleum reservoirs, and case studies on several associated topics. This volume will appeal to a broad cross section of geoscientists and geotechnical engineers, who are interested in this rapidly expanding field. The selection of papers in this volume reflects a growing trend towards a more diverse blend of disciplines and topics, covered in the study of mass-transport deposits.
Sedimentation and Tectonics in Rift Basins: Red Sea - Gulf of Aden presents new case studies and synthesises the results of recent research on the sedimentological evolution of the Red Sea - Gulf of Aden rift system. This rift basin is generally regarded as the best natural geological laboratory in the world in which to study the processes of rift formation. Uplift of the rift margins in an arid climate results in extensive three-dimensional exposures of pre- and syn-rift strata and associated structures. These serve as analogues for the understanding and hydrocarbon exploration of deeper buried rift-systems on continental margins such as the North Sea and the Atlantic margins. The Red Sea - Gulf of Aden rift is also exceptional in that its stratigraphy spans all stages from pre-rift environments, syn-rift continental to marine environments through the rift to drift transition to post-rift sea-floor spreading. The work is arranged in eight sections: following a review of the sedimentology and stratigraphy of rift basins, the magmatism and structural evolution of the Red Sea - Gulf of Aden rift is reviewed. Subsequently, new case studies are presented of the early rifting environment, syn-rift sedimentation, tectonics and diagenesis, evaporites and salt tectonics. Post-rift sediments of the axial trough are then discussed along with studies of reefs, coastal zone and shelf sediments, and the tectonic geomorphology of the rift margin escarpment. This work results from extensive new research in the rift basin largely carried out under collaborative research projects by European and Middle Eastern geologists. It will be an invaluable reference work for geoscientists in the hydrocarbon, groundwater and mineral extraction industries, as well as for researchers in university departments of earth sciences, mining and physical geography.
Salt tectonics is the study of how and why salt structures evolve and the three-dimensional forms that result. A fascinating branch of geology in itself, salt tectonics is also vitally important to the petroleum industry. Covering the entire scale from the microscopic to the continental, this textbook is an unrivalled consolidation of all topics related to salt tectonics: evaporite deposition and flow, salt structures, salt systems, and practical applications. Coverage of the principles of salt tectonics is supported by more than 600 color illustrations, including 200 seismic images captured by state-of-the-art geophysical techniques and tectonic models from the Applied Geodynamics Laboratory at the University of Texas, Austin. These combine to provide a cohesive and wide-ranging insight into this extremely visual subject. This is the definitive practical handbook for professional geologists and geophysicists in the petroleum industry, an invaluable textbook for graduate students, and a reference textbook for researchers in various geoscience fields.
"The Umbria-Marche Apennines are entirely made of marine sedimentary rocks, representing a continuous record of the geotectonic evolution of an epeiric sea from the Early Triassic to the Pleistocene. The book includes reviews and original research works accomplished with the support of the Geological Observatory of Coldigioco"--