Abstract: Angular Deviation in Grain Alignment Between Channel and Levee Sandstones Within a Submarine Fan Channel-Levee Complex Using Rock Magnetics

Debnath Basu

Grain fabric studies were conducted on channel and levee sandstones within a submarine fan channel-levee complex of the Permian Brushy Canyon Formation of the Delaware Basin in West Texas-New Mexico, using anisotropy of isothermal remanent magnetization (IRMA). This method of rock magnetic measurements reflect a sedimentary fabric when the long axes of grains are oriented parallel to bedding and are coherently aligned along flow direction and the short axes are perpendicular to bedding. The results in this study done on samples spread over a lateral distance of thirteen meters yield an angular deviation of 86° between the mean grain alignments within the channel and the proximal levee deposits, the grains in the channel sandstones being aligned approximately east-wes and those within the levee deposits being aligned north-south. This deviation in the grain-alignment is attributed to the overbanking of gravity flows from within the confines of the channel and dispersal laterally outward.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90955©1995 GCAGS 45th Annual Meeting and Gulf Section SEPM, Baton Rouge, Louisiana