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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 67 (1983)

Issue: 3. (March)

First Page: 474

Last Page: 474

Title: Geologic Framework and Petroleum Potential of United States Chukchi Shelf North of Point Hope, Alaska: ABSTRACT

Author(s): Arthur Grantz, Steven D. May

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

A reconnaissance grid of 24-channel seismic-reflection data indicates that most of the United States Chukchi shelf north of Point Hope, Alaska, is prospective for petroleum. The prospective rocks, which consist of four stratigraphic sequences, rest on the Arctic platform, a regional erosional surface cut across mildly metamorphosed lower Paleozoic rocks in Late Devonian time. The Eo-Ellesmerian sequence, interpreted to contain mainly Mississippian nonmarine deposits, is 5+ km (16,500 ft) thick and fills local sags and faulted depressions in the Arctic platform. Mississippian to Neocomian stable shelf clastic and carbonate beds of the Ellesmerian sequence, 0 to 7.7+ km (25,000 ft) thick, underlie most of the shelf but are absent from Barrow arch and the outer shelf of the ortheastern Chukchi Sea. Albian and Upper Cretaceous intradelta and prodelta deposits of the lower Brookian sequence, which thicken from 250 m (800 ft) on Barrow arch to 7.5+ km (24,500 ft) to the southwest, northwest, and north, underlie most of the shelf. The upper Brookian sequence, inferred to consist of marine and nonmarine clastic deposits of mainly or entirely Tertiary age, is 0 to 5.6+ km (18,500 ft) thick. It occurs only in Nuwuk and North Chukchi basins and locally as canyon fill beneath the central Chuckchi shelf.

The northern Chukchi shelf contains seven provinces of contrasting tectonic origin and structural style. Nuwuk basin, a progradational clastic prism containing 12+ km (39,500 ft) of lower and upper Brookian strata and numerous growth faults, overlies a rifted margin of Neocomian age beneath the outer shelf and slope of the northeastern Chukchi Sea. North Chukchi basin, which underlies the outer shelf west of Nuwuk basin, contains Ellesmerian beds and 12+ km (39,500 ft) of lower and upper Brookian strata. It may also overlie a Neocomian rifted margin, but was deepened by Laramide extensional rifting. South of these basins, shelf structure is controlled by the geometry of the Arctic platform, which slopes gently southwest from a depth of 0.25 km (800 ft) on Barrow arch to about 13 km (4 ,650 ft) off Point Lay. In the central part of the shelf, the platform is somewhat faulted and folded and descends to a depth of 10+ km (33,000 ft) to form the north-trending Hanna trough. West of the trough the platform rises to within 1 km (3,300 ft) of the seabed and is broken by numerous normal faults. The southern part of the platform contains a thick lower Brookian section with numerous northwest-striking, northeast-verging detachment folds. The fold province is bounded on the southwest, off Cape Lisburne, by the northwest-striking Herald arch overthrust belt at which one or more southwestward-dipping thrusts brought Ellesmerian and older strata to the seabed.

The seismic and extrapolated onshore data suggest that Nuwuk and North Chukchi basins, Hanna trough, and the Arctic platform east and west of the trough could contain significant deposits of oil or gas. The potential of the fold belt, however, is modest, and of Herald arch slight. Small areas on Barrow arch and the Arctic platform west of Hanna trough lack potential because they are underlain by less than 1 km (3,300 ft) of prospective section.

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Copyright 1997 American Association of Petroleum Geologists