ABSTRACT: Sedimentation and Tectonics in the Southern Bida Basin, Nigeria: Depositional Response to Varying Tectonic Context

Sokari P. Braide

The Upper Cretaceous Bida basin of central Nigeria is sandwiched between the Precambrian schist belts of the Northern Nigerian massif and the West African craton. Of interest is the southern part of the basin, which developed in continental settings, because the facies architecture of the sedimentary fill suggests a close relation between sedimentation dynamics and basin margin tectonics. This relationship is significant to an understanding of the basin's origin, which has been controversial. A simple sag and rift origin has been suggested, and consequently dominated the negative thinking on the hydrocarbon prospects of the basin, which were considered poor.

This detailed study of the facies indicates rapid basin-wide changes from various alluvial fan facies through flood-basin and deltaic facies to lacustrine facies. Paleogeographic reconstruction suggests lacustrine environments were widespread and elongate. Lacustrine environments occurred at the basin's axis and close to the margins. This suggests the depocenter must have migrated during the basin's depositional history and subsided rapidly to accommodate the 3.5-km-thick sedimentary fill.

Although distinguishing pull-apart basins from rift basins, based solely on sedimentologic grounds, may be difficult, the temporal migration of the depocenter, as well as the basin architecture of upward-coarsening cyclicity, show a strong tectonic and structural overprint that suggests a tectonic framework for the Southern Bida basin similar in origin to a pull-apart basin.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91003©1990 AAPG Annual Convention, San Francisco, California, June 3-6, 1990