Tectonic and climatic controls on isolated carbonate platforms evolution and demise. Central Luconia Province, South China Sea

Sergio Olave-Hoces, Texas A&M University Department of Geology & Geophysics, College Station, TX, [email protected]

During the Oligo-Miocene time, numerous isolated carbonate platforms developed in the South China Sea above many basement highs produced largely by the Paleogene episode of rifting. The subsequent flooding of these structural highs occurred as a result of the rapid post-rift thermal subsidence along with the long-term sea-level rise, allowing the onset of carbonate platform production, whose initiation started in the syn-rift to early post-rift stages of the South China Sea opening.

The subsequent sea level fluctuations together with ecological factors and tectonic subsidence established the architecture of the different episodes of growing in the platforms. The demise episode together with the growing pattern are recorded in seismic lines all across the area, where the different facies of growing can be identified, as well as the diachronic drowning stage, which is probably caused by the interplay between the long-term rise of sea-level, the tectonic subsidence of the area and the ecological factors that control the rate of carbonate production.

2-D regional lines in the area, public-domain data and published literature will be used to study many of the platforms and build-ups that intersect the 2-D survey. The aim of the study is the characterization of the different growing stages of the different carbonate platforms in order to establish its growing and demise history doing a strong emphasis in the tectonic and ecological factors affecting the carbonate production.