Baltimore Canyon Trough, a clastic-carbonate system
- Minerals Management Service, Herndon, VA (USA)
Baltimore Canyon Trough is similar in age, architecture, and sedimentary framework to neighboring marginal basins offshore from eastern North America. The other basins are the Scotian and Georges Bank basins and the Carolina Trough. All contain a Jurassic-earliest Cretaceous clastic-carbonate sedimentary section composed of terrigenous basin fill and a shallow-water limestone platform. In Baltimore Canyon Trough, the platform is believed to be over 10 km thick. Upward through the Jurassic System, the platform progrades seaward and narrows. The platform top is earliest Cretaceous (Berriasian) and only about 5-15 km wide. Width of the base is indeterminate but apparently much wider. At the seaward edge of the platform is a limestone buildup and reef complex that consists of bioclastic wackestones, packstones, grainstones, and sponge-stromatoporoid-algal bindstones. Foreslope deposits are thrombolitic stromatactis-pelletal carbonate mudstones. Landward of the buildup, the platform contains numerous siliciclastic interbeds, consisting of mostly calcareous shale and siltstone with inertinite. The calciclastic lime mudstone beds of the platform contain terrigenous siliciclasts and kerogens. All units are oxidized and show considerable sedimentary reworking. Through the Jurassic System and into the Cretaceous, terrigenous clastic sediments became increasingly dominant in the basin and erosional-depositional cycles continually reworked carbonate, as well as siliciclastic, units.
- OSTI ID:
- 6692567
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-900605--
- Journal Information:
- AAPG Bulletin (American Association of Petroleum Geologists); (USA), Journal Name: AAPG Bulletin (American Association of Petroleum Geologists); (USA) Vol. 74:5; ISSN AABUD; ISSN 0149-1423
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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