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Title: Contrasting evolutionary patterns of Lower Permian shelf and basinal facies, Midland basin, Texas

Conference · · AAPG (Am. Assoc. Pet. Geol.) Bull.; (United States)
OSTI ID:6253482

The evolution of carbonate and siliciclastic shelf-to-basin depositional systems of the Lower Permian in the Midland basin was influenced by eustatic fluctuations, changing shelf-margin biota, and concurrent tectonism. The development of these systems from Wolfcampian to Leonardian time (28-m.y. duration) involved seven distinct phases that are recognized seismically as third and lesser order cycles. These phases are (1) highstand progradational shelf carbonate packages, separated by low-stand deltaic and basinal shales, deposited during relatively long-term eustatic cycles (early Wolfcampian); the component carbonate systems evolved from ramps to distally steepened ramps associated with nonframe-building algal reefs and grainstones, with little resedimented foreshelf detritus; (2) dominantly carbonate deposition during the middle and early late Wolfcampian, with construction of offlapping (but laterally juxtaposed) progradational shelves with steep platform margins deposited during a lengthy period of stillstand and/or slow submergence; dolomitized platform-margin facies are composed of marine-cemented, sponge-algal reefs and grainstones, with resedimented carbonate megabreccia to micrite channels and lobes in the contiguous shale basin; (3) shelf emergence and erosion during a major late middle(.) to late Wolfcampian lowstand contemporaneous with basinwide tectonism, with mass wastage into the basin of the terminal Wolfcampian platform-margin carbonate section; (4) regional transgression and black shale deposition followed by a repeat of Phase 2 type systems in the latest Wolfcampian to earliest Leonardian but under arid conditions; rapid vertical platform margin accretion by dolomitized, marine-cemented, sponge-algal-coral reefs and grainstones, and deposition of thick foreshelf megabreccia wedges, aprons, channels, and lobes;

OSTI ID:
6253482
Report Number(s):
CONF-870606-
Journal Information:
AAPG (Am. Assoc. Pet. Geol.) Bull.; (United States), Vol. 71:5; Conference: American Association of Petroleum Geologists annual meeting, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 7 Jun 1987
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English