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Architecture of an Incised Valley Formed within a Semi-Arid Setting, Baffin Bay, Texas
Aryal, Niranjan1,
Alexander Simms2 (1) Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK (2) Oklahoma State University,
Baffin Bay, Texas, is a flooded late
Pleistocene/Holocene incised valley of Petronila, San Fernando, and Los Olmos Creeks. Baffin Bay represents an “under-filled”
incised valley that currently lies within a semiarid climate zone and is the
site of both siliciclastic and carbonate depositional
systems. In order to examine the internal architecture of an incised valley
formed within a semi-arid setting, we collected 65 km of high-resolution
seismic profiles and three cores up to 10 m in length aboard the R/V Trinity.
This data was used to construct a Pleistocene/Holocene map of the incised
valley and examine the sedimentlogical character of
its fill. In its upper reach the incised valley achieves a depth of 28.5m. The
fill contains mostly silt and carbonate mud with lamination of shell hash,
algal mats, and fine sand. The architecture of this mixed siliciclastic/carbonate
under-filled incised valley can be used as an analogue when producing from and
searching for new petroleum reservoirs within semi-arid climatic settings.