NEW ADVANCES IN DEVONIAN CARBONATES: OUTCROP ANALOGS, RESERVOIRS AND CHRONOSTRATIGRAPHY
The Devonian stratigraphic record contains a wealth of information that highlights the response of carbonate platforms to both global-scale and local phenomena that drive carbonate architecture and productivity. Signals embedded particularly in the Middle-Upper Devonian carbonate record related to biotic crises and stressed oceanic conditions, long-term accommodation trends, and peak greenhouse to transitional climatic changes are observed in multiple localities around the world and temporally constrained by biostratigraphy, highlighting distinct and impactful global controls. Devonian datasets also stress the importance of local or regional phenomena, such as bolide impacts, the effects of terrestrial input and paleogeography, syn-depositional tectonics, and high-frequency accommodation drivers, which add complexity to the carbonate stratigraphic record when superimposed on global trends. The unique occurrence of well-studied and pristinely preserved reefal carbonate outcrop and subsurface datasets, ranging across the globe from Australia to Canada, allows for a detailed examination of Devonian carbonate systems from a global perspective and the opportunity to develop well-constrained predictive relationships and conceptual models. Advances in the understanding of the Devonian carbonate system is advantageous considering, not only the classic conventional reservoirs such as the pinnacle reefs of the Alberta Basin, but also emerging conventional reservoirs in Eurasia, and many unconventional plays in North America. The papers in this volume provide updated stratigraphic frameworks for classic Devonian datasets using integrated correlation approaches; new or synthesized frameworks for less studied basins, reservoirs, or areas; and discussions on the complex interplay of extrinsic and intrinsic controls that drive carbonate architectures, productivity, and distribution. The 13 papers in this special publication include outcrop and subsurface studies of Middle to Upper Devonian carbonates of western Canada, the Lennard Shelf of the Canning Basin, Western Australia, and the western USA.
SEQUENCE STRATIGRAPHY ACROSS AN EVENT DEPOSIT: PRE-, SYN-, AND POSTIMPACT ACCOMMODATION TRENDS AND SEQUENCE DEVELOPMENT SURROUNDING THE ALAMO IMPACT BRECCIA Available to Purchase
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Published:January 01, 2017
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CiteCitation
Benjamin E. Rendall, Leif Tapanila, 2017. "SEQUENCE STRATIGRAPHY ACROSS AN EVENT DEPOSIT: PRE-, SYN-, AND POSTIMPACT ACCOMMODATION TRENDS AND SEQUENCE DEVELOPMENT SURROUNDING THE ALAMO IMPACT BRECCIA", NEW ADVANCES IN DEVONIAN CARBONATES: OUTCROP ANALOGS, RESERVOIRS AND CHRONOSTRATIGRAPHY, Ted E. Playton, Charles Kerans, John A.W. Weissenberger
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ABSTRACT
The effects of bolide impacts on carbonate platform sedimentation and stacking patterns are poorly understood, partly because the geological evidence for marine impact sites is typically unavailable. Givetian–Frasnian carbonates in southern Nevada contain a continuous record of sedimentation before, during, and after the Devonian (Frasnian) Alamo impact event (382 Ma), evidenced mainly by the regional Alamo Breccia Member of the Guilmette Formation. Two transects arranged from seven stratigraphic sections measured through the lower ~300 m of the Guilmette Formation record environmental lithofacies deposited from peritidal to deep subtidal zones. Stacking patterns of peritidal and subtidal cycles indicate four relatively high-frequency sequences superimposed on the larger-magnitude eustatic Taghanic onlap of the Kaskaskia sequence. Sequences are interpreted based on facies proportions and cycle stacking trends because of a lack of prominent erosional surfaces developed on the Frasnian greenhouse shelf. Lateral correlation of facies and cycle stacking indicates that the Alamo impact took place during the late phase of sedimentation during deposition of “Sequence 3” in the Guilmette Formation. Underlying facies and surfaces were obliterated and excavated during the impact, resulting in truncated terminations of sequence boundary and maximum flooding zones. Eustatic sea-level rise during the late Frasnian resulted in an overarching shoreline backstep and deepening of vertical facies associations prior to the Alamo impact. Additional accommodation was gained instantaneously as a result of the Alamo impact, which formed a local, steep-sided basin and shifted the slope break of the platform margin. Postimpact sedimentation within the Alamo crater is characterized by condensed sections of continuously deposited thin-bedded mudstones with pelagic (tentaculites) fauna. Thick shoreface sandstones were deposited in a lowstand clastic wedge as the last phase of crater fill in the study area. While accommodation and depositional environment changed dramatically at the impact site, long-term sedimentation trends immediately outside of the impact site were unaffected by the Alamo event, demonstrating that the forces that control overall carbonate platform growth and evolution (tectonics, climate, oceanography, biology) are of far greater importance than even regional-scale physical perturbations such as meteor impacts.