Abstract: Simulating Clastic Depositional Systems: Testing the Response to Tectonic Setting, Sedimentation a Eustatic Sea Level

Robert E. Prueser, Mei Leng Wong, Phillip A. Levine, Christopher G. St. Clement Kendall, Phillip D. Moore, Mike Dixon, Robert L. Cannon, Derek Sanders, Douglas R. Hellmann

The depositional history of three clastic settings are simulated. These include the Jurassic Brent delta of the northern sector of the Viking Graben, the Paleocene Wilcox delta of the Gulf of Mexico, and the northward prograding Cenozoic clastic wedge of the Lombok basin in the East Java Sea. Each of these clastic systems has a different tectonic setting--namely, the extensional fault-bounded aulocogen of the North Sea, the extensional marginal sag of the Gulf of Mexico, and the compressional back-arc basin of the East Java Sea. The controls on the sedimentary fill of these different settings are their sedimentary source, sea level and tectonic behavior. In the North Sea, the provenance of the Brent Sand is to the south and the sand is transported along the graben northwards to where ubsidence is less. For the Wilcox Sands, the provenance is the continental interior to the north and the sediment is transported perpendicularly into the rapidly subsiding basin to the south. In contrast, the East Java Sea sediment provenance is a rapidly uplifted island arc to the south and these sands thin to the north with deposition in a moderately stable basin. The different complexities in style of each basin lends itself to computer simulation. The results of simulating the sedimentary fill in each basin has identified the importance of tectonics as a major cause for sediment accommodation, while high-frequency sea level changes punctuate the character of the sedimentary section. In addition, the simulated distribution of facies geometries can be related to composition, deposition l water depth, and distance from shoreline.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90986©1994 AAPG Annual Convention, Denver, Colorado, June 12-15, 1994