ABSTRACT: Sequence Stratigraphy of Miocene Carbonate Buildups, Java Sea

CUCCI, MAURICE A., ARCO E & PT, Plano, TX, and MICHAEL H. CLARK, ARCO Oil & Gas Co., Midland, TX

Seismic, well-log, core, and biostratigraphic data were integrated to establish a sequence stratigraphic framework for the Gunung Putih carbonate complex, a foundered Tertiary age buildup located in the east Java Sea.

Widespread buildups began in late Eocene time, on a beveled Cretaceous platform. Differential subsidence during Miocene time changed the style of carbonate buildups from widespread distribution common during the Eocene and Oligocene to restricted distribution related to structural highs during the Miocene.

Miocene buildups exhibit pronounced stratigraphic asymmetry The northern part (paleowindward side?) of the platform displays aggradational, backstepping, and forestepping, bulwark-like framestone-prone buildups. The southern part (leeward side?) is characterized by continuous forestepping buildups with clinoform reflection geometries characterized by oblique (keep-up, grain-rich) and sigmoid (catch-up, mud-prone) high- and lowstand progradation. Mounded, toe-of-slope, lowstand deposits of several sequences form an apron around the entire Miocene complex.

In later middle Miocene time, accelerated subsidence, coupled with a massive influx of northerly derived, siliciclastic sediments, resulted in burial of the buildups.

Grain-rich Miocene facies can be predicted by (1) identifying antecedent structural highs, (2) the occurrence of stacked, backstepping, transgressive deposits (indicating high carbonate production and underscoring the presence of a preexisting high), (3) stacked, mounded, high-frequency and high-amplitude reflections on the structural crests indicating inner neritic carbonate grainstone and framestone production, (4) stacking of seismic reflections displaying partial erosional truncation of underlying sequences, indicating that the structure and its associated deposits remained in shallow water conducive to grainstone production, and (5) the upper terminations of oblique prograding carbonate clinoforms.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91012©1992 AAPG Annual Meeting, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, June 22-25, 1992 (2009)