Oscar Gratacós

Supervised identification and reconstruction of near-planar geological surfaces from terrestrial laser scanning

Terrestrial laser scanning is an effective method for digitally capturing outcrops, enabling them to be visualized, analyzed, and revisited in an office environment without the limitations of fieldwork (such as time constraints, weather conditions, outcrop accessibility, repeatability, and poor resolution of measurements). It is common practice in geological interpretation of digital outcrops to use visual identification and manual digitization of pointsets or polylines in order to characterise geological features using 3D CAD-like modules. Other recent and less generic approaches have focused on automated extraction of geological features by using segmentation methods, mostly based on geometric parameters derived from the point cloud, but also aided by attributes captured from the outcrop (intensity, RGB). This paper presents a workflow for the supervised and automated identification and reconstruction of near-planar geological surfaces that have a three-dimensional exposure in the outcrop (typically bedding, fractures, or faults enhanced by differential erosion). The original point cloud is used without modifications, and thus no decimation, smoothing, intermediate triangulation, or gridding are required. The workflow is based on planar regressions carried out for each point in the point cloud, enabling subsequent filtering and classification to be based on orientation, quality of fit, and relative locations of points. A coarse grid preprocessing strategy is implemented to speed up the search for neighboring points, permitting analysis of multimillion point clouds. The surfaces identified are organized into classes according to their orientations and regression quality parameters. These can then be used as seeds for building outcrop reconstructions or further analyzed to investigate their characteristics (geometry, morphology, spacing, dimensions, intersections, etc.). The workflow is illustrated here using a synthetic example and a natural example from a limestone outcrop, in which surfaces corresponding to bedding and three fault orientations were reconstructed.

SIMSAFADIM-CLASTIC: A new approach to mathematical 3D forward simulation modelling for terrigenous and carbonate marine sedimentation

Most sedimentary modelling programs developed in recent years focus on either terrigenous or carbonate marine sedimentation. Nevertheless, only a few programs have attempted to consider mixed terrigenous-carbonate sedimentation, and most of these are two-dimensional, which is a major restriction since geological processes take place in 3D. This paper presents the basic concepts of a new 3D mathematical forward simulation model for clastic sediments, which was developed from SIMSAFADIM, a previous 3D carbonate sedimentation model. The new extended model, SIMSAFADIM-CLASTIC, simulates processes of autochthonous marine carbonate production and accumulation, together with clastic transport and sedimentation in three dimensions of both carbonate and terrigenous sediments. Other models and modelling strategies may also provide realistic and efficient tools for prediction of stratigraphic architecture and facies distribution of sedimentary deposits. However, SIMSAFADIM-CLASTIC becomes an innovative model that attempts to simulate different sediment types using a process-based approach, therefore being a useful tool for 3D prediction of stratigraphic architecture and facies distribution in sedimentary basins. This model is applied to the neogene Valles-Penedes half-graben (western Mediterranean, NE Spain) to show the capacity of the program when applied to a realistic geologic situation involving interactions between terrigenous clastics and carbonate sediments.

Orientation domains: A mobile grid clustering algorithm with spherical corrections

An algorithm has been designed and tested which was devised as a tool assisting the analysis of geological structures solely from orientation data. More specifically, the algorithm was intended for the analysis of geological structures that can be approached as planar and piecewise features, like many folded strata. Input orientation data is expressed as pairs of angles (azimuth and dip). The algorithm starts by considering the data in Cartesian coordinates. This is followed by a search for an initial clustering solution, which is achieved by comparing the results output from the systematic shift of a regular rigid grid over the data. This initial solution is optimal (achieves minimum square error) once the grid size and the shift increment are fixed. Finally, the algorithm corrects for the variable spread that is generally expected from the data type using a reshaped non-rigid grid. The algorithm is size-oriented, which implies the application of conditions over cluster size through all the process in contrast to density-oriented algorithms, also widely used when dealing with spatial data. Results are derived in few seconds and, when tested over synthetic examples, they were found to be consistent and reliable. This makes the algorithm a valuable alternative to the time-consuming traditional approaches available to geologists.

Process-based forward numerical ecological modeling for carbonate sedimentary basins

Nowadays, numerical modeling is a common tool used in the study of sedimentary basins, since it allows to quantify the processes simulated and to determine interactions among them. One of such programs is SIMSAFADIM-CLASTIC, a 3D forward-model process-based code to simulate the sedimentation in a marine basin at a geological time scale. It models the fluid flow, siliciclastic transport and sedimentation, and carbonate production. In this article, we present the last improvements in the carbonate production model, in particular about the usage of Generalized Lotka-Volterra equations that include logistic growth and interaction among species. Logistic growth is constrained by environmental parameters such as water depth, energy of the medium, and depositional profile. The environmental parameters are converted to factors and combined into one single environmental value to model the evolution of species. The interaction among species is quantified using the community matrix that captures the beneficial or detrimental effects of the presence of each species on the other. A theoretical example of a carbonate ramp is computed to show the interaction among carbonate and siliciclastic sediment, the effect of environmental parameters to the modeled species associations, and the interaction among these species associations. The distribution of the modeled species associations in the theoretical example presented is compared with the carbonate Oligocene-Miocene Asmari Formation in Iran and the Miocene Ragusa Platform in Italy.

Modeling the interaction between presalt seamounts and gravitational failure in salt-bearing passive margins: The Messinian case in the northwestern Mediterranean Basin

AbstractThe northwest Mediterranean Basin includes a thick Messinian salt sequence composed of three evaporitic units. From these, the intermediate unit, which is dominantly composed of halite, acted as a gravitational detachment favoring the downslope failure of the overlying sediments in a thin-skinned deformation regime. As a result, the structure of the margin is characterized by an upper extensional domain with basinward-dipping listric normal faults and a lower contractional domain that accommodates upslope extension by folding, salt inflation, or diapir squeezing. Lower to middle Miocene volcanic seamounts (presalt reliefs) located at the upper extensional domain locally disrupted the evaporitic units and produced salt flow perturbations. They acted as passive buttresses during the gravitational failure modifying the structural zonation of the margin. Using an experimental approach (sandbox models), we analyze the role played by seamounts during the kinematic evolution of passive margins and how th...