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Basin Architecture (basin + architecture)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Earth and Environmental Science	100%

Selected Abstracts

Tectono-sedimentary evolution of active extensional basins

BASIN RESEARCH, Issue 3-4 2000
R. L. Gawthorpe
We present conceptual models for the tectono-sedimentary evolution of rift basins. Basin architecture depends upon a complex interaction between the three-dimensional evolution of basin linkage through fault propagation, the evolution of drainage and drainage catchments and the effects of changes in climate and sea/lake level. In particular, the processes of fault propagation, growth, linkage and death are major tectonic controls on basin architecture. Current theoretical and experimental models of fault linkage and the direction of fault growth can be tested using observational evidence from the earliest stages of rift development. Basin linkage by burial or breaching of crossover basement ridges is the dominant process whereby hydrologically closed rifts evolve into open ones. Nontectonic effects arising from climate, sea or lake level change are responsible for major changes in basin-scale sedimentation patterns. Major gaps in our understanding of rift basins remain because of current inadequacies in sediment, fault and landscape dating. [source]

Permo-Triassic development from Ireland to Norway: basin architecture and regional controls

GEOLOGICAL JOURNAL, Issue 6 2009
tolfová
Abstract Extensive occurrences of Permo-Triassic strata are preserved along the Northwest European Atlantic margin. Seismic reflection and well data are used to describe large-scale Permo-Triassic basin geometries along a swath of the continental shelf more than 2000,km long extending from the Irish to the mid-Norwegian sectors. Successions in the Celtic Sea, the flanks of the Irish Rockall Basin, basins west and north of Scotland, and the Trøndelag and Horda platforms west of Norway are described. The large-scale Permo-Triassic depositional geometries commonly represent erosional remnants of larger basins modified by later rifting episodes, uplift, inversion and continental breakup. However, the interpreted geometries reveal spatial and temporal differences in rifting style. The basins developed above a complex mosaic of petrologically heterogeneous crustal terranes with inherited crustal fabrics, which had a significant impact on the depositional basin geometries. Small Permian basins with growth faulting developed in the southern Celtic Sea region. Extensive, uniformly thick Triassic strata are characteristic of the wide rift basins in the southeastern Rockall Basin and northwest of the Solan Bank High. Thick, fault-controlled basins developed in the Horda and Trøndelag platform regions. The main controls on Permo-Triassic basin architecture are (a) crustal thickness and composition, which determined the development of narrow or wide rift basin geometries, (b) inherited Variscan, Caledonian and Precambrian basement structures and (c) pre-rift palaeotopography. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Evolution of basin architecture in an incipient continental rift: the Cenozoic Most Basin, Eger Graben (Central Europe)

BASIN RESEARCH, Issue 3 2009
Michal Rajchl
ABSTRACT The Oligo-Miocene Most Basin is the largest preserved sedimentary basin within the Eger Graben, the easternmost part of the European Cenozoic Rift System (ECRIS). The basin is interpreted as a part of an incipient rift system that underwent two distinct phases of extension. The first phase, characterised by NNE,SSW- to N,S-oriented horizontal extension between the end of Eocene and early Miocene, was oblique to the rift axis and caused evolution of a fault system characterised by en-échelon-arranged E,W (ENE,WSW) faults. These faults defined a number of small, shallow initial depocentres of very small subsidence rates that gradually merged during the growth and linkage of the normal fault segments. The youngest part of the basin fill indicates accelerated subsidence caused probably by the concentration of displacement at several major bounding faults. Major post-depositional faulting and forced folding were related to a change in the extension vector to an orthogonal position with respect to the rift axis and overprinting of the E,W faults by an NE,SW normal fault system. The origin of the palaeostress field of the earlier, oblique, extensional phase remains controversial and can be attributed either to the effects of the Alpine lithospheric root or (perhaps more likely because of the dominant volcanism at the onset of Eger Graben formation) to doming due to thermal perturbation of the lithosphere. The later, orthogonal, extensional phase is explained by stretching along the crest of a growing regional-scale anticlinal feature, which supports the recent hypothesis of lithospheric folding in the Alpine,Carpathian foreland. [source]

Role of crustal anisotropy in modifying the structural and sedimentological evolution of extensional basins: the Gamtoos Basin, South Africa

BASIN RESEARCH, Issue 3 2004
Douglas A. Paton
Through the investigation of crustal heterogeneities, sedimentary basin architecture and seismic stratigraphy, we demonstrate how a crust-scale anisotropy controls the initiation of rifting and the subsequent structural and sedimentological evolution of the Mesozoic Gamtoos Basin, southern South Africa. The results demonstrate that the >90-km-long Gamtoos Fault established its length very early in its syn-rift phase (within ,5 Ma of rift initiation) before accruing over 6 s (two-way-travel time (TWT)), or >12 km, of displacement without any significant subsequent increase in length. In addition, there is no evidence at the resolution of the data of fault segmentation, isolated depocentres nor of intra-basin faults progressively coalescing during the syn-rift interval. The early establishment of length resulted in a rapid transition from a terrestrial depositional environment to anoxic, deep marine conditions. The Gamtoos Fault has a 90° bend in the fault trace that we propose is inherited from the underlying structure. Immediately adjacent to the bend the basin-fill is significantly deformed and a high-amplitude (>1.7s TWT) monoclinal fold is observed. Previous workers proposed that the fold was a consequence of a complex interplay between compression and extension. Through a restoration of the basin-fill deformation we produce a model that suggests that the fold is a consequence of the accommodation of extension by the unusual plan-view trace of the fault. The evolution of the basin does not conform to current fault growth models and it is proposed that its unusual and complex development can be attributed to the underlying crustal-scale anisotropy, a fact that is likely to be important in other areas in which crustal stretching is superimposed on heterogeneous continental crust. [source]