Transform Margins: Development, Controls and Petroleum Systems
CONTAINS OPEN ACCESS
This volume covers the linkage between new transform margin research and increasing transform margin exploration. It offers a critical set of predictive tools via an understanding of the mechanisms involved in the development of play concept elements at transform margins. It ties petroleum systems knowledge to the input coming from research focused on dynamic development, kinematic development, structural architecture and thermal regimes, together with their controlling factors. The volume does this by drawing from geophysical data (bathymetry, seismic, gravity and magnetic studies), structural geology, sedimentology, geochemistry, plate reconstruction and thermo-mechanical numerical modelling. It combines case studies (covering the Andaman Sea, Arctic, Coromandal, Guyana, Romanche, St. Paul and Suriname transform margins, the French Guyana hyper-oblique margin, the transtensional margin between the Caribbean and North American plates, and the Davie transform margin and its neighbour transform margins) with theoretical studies.
Mechanisms of microcontinent release associated with wrenching-involved continental break-up; a review
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Published:January 01, 2016
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CiteCitation
M. Nemčok, S. T. Sinha, A. G. Doré, E. R. Lundin, J. Mascle, S. Rybár, 2016. "Mechanisms of microcontinent release associated with wrenching-involved continental break-up; a review", Transform Margins: Development, Controls and Petroleum Systems, M. Nemčok, S. Rybár, S. T. Sinha, S. A. Hermeston, L. Ledvényiová
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Abstract
The study focuses on the role of wrenching-involved continental break-up in microcontinent release, drawing from a review of examples. It indicates that the main groups of release mechanisms in this setting are associated with ‘competing wrench faults’, ‘competing horsetail structure elements’, ‘competing rift zones’ and ‘multiple consecutive tectonic events’ controlled by different stress regimes capable of release. Competing-wrench-fault-related blocks are small, up to a maximum 220 km in length. They are more-or-less parallel to oceanic transforms. The competing horsetail-structure-element-related blocks are larger (up to 610 km in length) and are located at an acute angle to the transform. Competing-rift-zone-related blocks are large (up to 815 km) and are either parallel or perpendicular to the transform. The multiple-consecutive-tectonic-event-related blocks have variable size and are generally very elongate, ranging up to 1100 km in length. The role of strike-slip faults in release of continental blocks resides in:
linking the extensional zones, where the blocks are already isolated, by their propagation through the remaining continental bridges and subsequent displacement;
facilitating rapid crustal thinning across a narrow zone of strike-slip-dominated faults; and
slicing the margin into potentially detachable fault blocks.