Peter B. Flemings

Large‐scale stratigraphic architecture, eustatic variation, and unsteady tectonism: A theoretical evaluation

We incorporate a process-based depositional model with basin subsidence models to predict stratigraphic records. This allows us to investigate the importance of subsidence geometry on coastal stratigraphy and thus to characterize and compare the stratigraphic architecture of two categories of tectonic basins. The models demonstrate that the correlation of stratigraphic sequences to eustatic cycles is not the same in passive margin basins as in foreland basins and that in a foreland basin, the record of episodic tectonism is distinct from that of eustatic sea level change. In the model, sediment transport is approximated by slope-controlled diffusion; nonmarine transport is treated as more efficient diffusion than marine transport. Three different subsidence and sediment supply models are examined: a simple passive margin basin, a simple foreland basin, and then a foreland basin for which vertical motions are driven by thrust shortening that is compensated flexurally and for which sediment supply is related to relief. Predicted passive margin stratigraphies, for cases of varying eustatic sea level, are similar to those of natural basins and include progradational packages and subaerial unconformities, which are used to define sequence boundaries that form during sea level fall. We explore the timing relationships between stratigraphic features and a sinusoidal sea level history, showing that the phase relationship depends on subsidence, sediment flux, efficiency of sediment transport, and period and amplitude of sea level. When the basic geometry of the basin is inverted, placing the sediment supply on the side with maximum subsidence as is the case in foreland basins, the sequence character changes markedly: subaerial erosion does not generate unconformities. In the models of a dynamic foreland basin, sediment supply and subsidence are linked to the structure of the flanking thrust belt and are not necessarily constant. For steady thrusting and variable sea level, unconformities that define sequence boundaries form only on the distal or forebulge side of the basin, and the ages of the sequence boundaries correlate to limes of rising sea level. In cases of constant sea level but variable thrusting, subaerial unconformities are cut locally on both the proximal margin of the basin and the distal margin of the basin, yet the ages of the proximal margin and distal margin unconformities are out of phase in the tectonic cycle: erosion is most pronounced during quiescence on the proximal side and during thrusting on the distal side.

Stratigraphic modeling of foreland basins: Interpreting thrust deformation and lithosphere rheology

The authors incorporate the processes of erosion and deposition in a numerical model to predict the stratal geometries and facies patterns produced during episodic thrusting in a nonmarine foreland basin. The resultant stratigraphic record is characterized by a stairstepped facies package in which each retrogradation of facies (toward the thrust) marks the onset of a thrusting event. The retrogradation of facies coincides with the migration of the forebulge toward the thrust and the generation of an erosional unconformity. In the past, changes in basin wavelength during basin evolution have been interpreted to record viscoelastic relaxation of the lithosphere. This model suggests that changes in basin wavelength are a natural consequence of the interplay between thrust and sediment loading on an elastic lithosphere.

Feeding methane vents and gas hydrate deposits at south Hydrate Ridge

Log and core data document gas saturations as high as 90% in a coarse-grained turbidite sequence beneath the gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ) at south Hydrate Ridge, in the Cascadia accretionary complex. The geometry of this gas-saturated bed is defined by a strong, negative-polarity reflection in 3D seismic data. Because of the gas buoyancy, gas pressure equals or exceeds the overburden stress immediately beneath the GHSZ at the summit. We conclude that gas is focused into the coarse-grained sequence from a large volume of the accretionary complex and is trapped until high gas pressure forces the gas to migrate through the GHSZ to seafloor vents. This focused flow provides methane to the GHSZ in excess of its proportion in gas hydrate, thus providing a mechanism to explain the observed coexistence of massive gas hydrate, saline pore water and free gas near the summit.

Critical pressure and multiphase flow in Blake Ridge gas hydrates

We use core porosity, consolidation experiments, pressure core sampler data, and capillary pressure measurements to predict water pressures that are 70% of the lithostatic stress, and gas pressures that equal the lithostatic stress beneath the methane hydrate layer at Ocean Drilling Program Site 997, Blake Ridge, offshore North Carolina. A 29-m-thick interconnected free-gas column is trapped beneath the low-permeability hydrate layer. We propose that lithostatic gas pressure is dilating fractures and gas is migrating through the methane hydrate layer. Overpressured gas and water within methane hydrate reservoirs limit the amount of free gas trapped and may rapidly export methane to the seafloor.

Porosity and pressure: Role of compaction disequilibrium in the development of geopressures in a Gulf Coast Pleistocene basin

Measured pressures in Pleistocene strata of the Eugene Island block 330 area of offshore Louisiana reach approx. nine-tenths of the lithostatic pressures below 2 km depth; three-fourths of these geopressures are due to compaction disequilibrium. We show the relation between effective stress and porosity for compacting sediments to be exponential in shallow, normally pressured strata, then use the relation to calculate fluid pressure at depth in geopressured strata. Measured pressures below 2 km exceed our predicted values. A plot of effective stress vs. porosity demonstrates that compaction disequilibrium accounts for about three-quarters of the overpressures. We infer that the remainder must be due to pore-pressure generation at depth that occurred after the rocks reached their present porosity.

Stress, pore pressure, and dynamically constrained hydrocarbon columns in the South Eugene Island 330 field, northern Gulf of Mexico

Hydrocarbon phase pressures at the peak of two severely overpressured reservoirs in the South Eugene Island 330 field, Gulf of Mexico, converge on the minimum principal stress of the top seal. We interpret that the system is dynamically constrained by the stress field present through either fault slip or hydraulic fracturing. In two fault blocks of a shallower, moderately overpressured reservoir sand, hydrocarbon phase pressures are within a range of critical pore pressure values for slip to occur on the bounding growth faults. We interpret that pore pressures in this system are also dynamically controlled. We introduce a dynamic capacity model to describe a critical reservoir pore pressure value that corresponds to either the sealing capacity of the fault against which the sand abuts or the pressure required to hydraulically fracture the overlying shale or fault. This critical pore pressure is a function of the state of stress in the overlying shale and the pore pressure in the sand. We require that the reservoir pore pressure at the top of the structure be greater than in the overlying shale. The four remaining reservoirs studied in the field exhibit reservoir pressures well below critical values for dynamic failure and are, therefore, considered static. All reservoirs that are dynamically constrained are characterized by short oil columns, whereas the reservoirs having static conditions have very long gas and oil columns.

Present-day principal horizontal stress orientations in the Kumano forearc basin of the southwest Japan subduction zone determined from IODP NanTroSEIZE drilling Site C0009

A 1.6 km riser borehole was drilled at site C0009 of the NanTroSEIZE, in the center of the Kumano forearc basin, as a landward extension of previous drilling in the southwest Japan Nankai subduction zone. We determined principal horizontal stress orientations from analyses of borehole breakouts and drilling-induced tensile fractures by using wireline logging formation microresistivity images and caliper data. The maximum horizontal stress orientation at C0009 is approximately parallel to the convergence vector between the Philippine Sea plate and Japan, showing a slight difference with the stress orientation which is perpendicular to the plate boundary at previous NanTroSEIZE sites C0001, C0004 and C0006 but orthogonal to the stress orientation at site C0002, which is also in the Kumano forearc basin. These data show that horizontal stress orientations are not uniform in the forearc basin within the surveyed depth range and suggest that oblique plate motion is being partitioned into strike-slip and thrusting. In addition, the stress orientations at site C0009 rotate clockwise from basin sediments into the underlying accretionary prism.

Scaling in Turbidite Deposition

ABSTRACT We propose that the distribution of layer thicknesses of turbidite deposits that show minimal erosional truncation and amalgamation should obey the power law N(h) h-B, where N(h) is the number of layers of thickness greater than h and B 1. We support this proposal with two sets of observations, one from formation-microscanner images obtained in offshore wells that penetrate Tertiary fore-arc turbidites (Hiscott et al. 1992) and the other from our own field measurements of turbidites in the Neoproterozoic Kingston Peak Formation, deposited in a glacially influenced rift basin. Both sets of observations show roughly the same power-law distribution above a small-h cutoff. otivated by the possible generality of these results, and given strong geological and sedimentological contrasts between the two data sets, we consider the available theoretical and experimental evidence that could support or deny these observations. We tentatively conclude that the power law is generic in data sets characterized by minimal erosional truncation and amalgamation but emphasize that further study is required for a definitive statement. Proceeding from the assumption that the scaling law is valid for arbitrarily thin layers, we derive an upper bound for B. We then detail simple and plausible assumptions that provide a theoretical estimate of B. We discuss possible ramifications of this analysis for the interpretation of further data.

Dating Thrust-Fault Activity by Use of Foreland-Basin Strata

Foreland basins form at the sides of thrusted mountain belts because of flexure of the lithosphere under a load. In retroarc and in some peripheral foreland basins, the entire flexure results from the load of thrust sheets. Thus the subsidence history of the basin is an indirect measure of the history of thrusting. Although the texture and migrations of facies of the basin fill certainly respond to thrust motions, they also depend on the other independent controls (climate, the lithology of the thrust belt, and base level). Therefore it is unreliable to use textural history or facies migrations as indicators of thrust history.

Seismic geomorphology, lithology, and evolution of the late Pleistocene Mars-Ursa turbidite region, Mississippi Canyon area, northern Gulf of Mexico

The interplay between sedimentation and erosion during the late Pleistocene in the Mars-Ursa region, northern Gulf of Mexico, resulted in a complex compartmentalized reservoir. Rapid deposition, directly downdip of the Mississippi River beginning about 70 k.y., quickly filled antecedent topography in the Mars-Ursa region with a thick accumulation of sand and mud called the blue unit. This permeable reservoir was rapidly and asymmetrically buried by thick, mud-rich levees of two channel-levee systems. Both systems plunged from north to south with a steeper gradient than the underlying blue unit. Rotated channel-margin slides present in both channel-levee systems rotated low-permeability, mud-rich levee deposits beneath the sand-rich channel fill. As a result of the channel-levee systems, the east-west hydraulic connectivity of the blue unit decreases progressively from north to south until its eastern and western halves become completely separated.