About This Item
- Full text of this item is not available.
- Abstract PDFAbstract PDF(no subscription required)
Share This Item
The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
Houston Geological Society Bulletin
Abstract
Abstract: Late Paleozoic Deformation in the Permian Basin
Region: Styles, Patterns, Kinematics and Effects
on Petroleum Reservoirs
By
Department of Geology & Geophysics
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas
The Permian Basin of West Texas and southeastern New
Mexico is located in the foreland of
the Ouachita-Marathon orogenic belt.
The basin was segmented into several
sub-basins by fault
-bounded basement
uplifts during late Paleozoic deformation
that coincided with shortening in
the Ouachita-Marathon orogen. The
north-south trending Central Basin
Platform (CBP) is one of these uplifts. It
strikes at a high angle to the front of the
orogenic belt. The CBP separates the
Delaware Basin to the west from the Midland Basin to the east
and is bounded by complex
fault
systems
that vary from steep reverse faults to
transpressional/transtensional deformation
zones. The Ozona Arch is an eastern
extension of the southern CBP and separates
the Midland Basin from the Val Verde
Basin. The Ozona Arch likely represents a
broken forebulge that is bounded by
steeply dipping, east-west-trending
fault
End_Page 33---------------
zones that accommodated oblique-slip displacement during late Paleozoic time. The Val Verde Basin was the narrow foredeep in front of the Marathon orogenic belt during Mississippian to early Permian time.
Three main stages of late Paleozoic deformation can be recognized
across most of the Permian Basin, based on significant changes in
lithofacies distributions, various styles of deformation across the
basin, and where active deformation occurred over time. Before
late Mississippian time, the Permian Basin was a relatively stable
tectonic region that was characterized by extensive shallow-water
carbonate sedimentation. Minor en echelon folding reflected
the initial regionally distributed right-lateral transpressional
deformation that developed during late Mississippian–middle
Pennsylvanian time. These folds probably record the earliest
phase of reactivation of deep, late Precambrian–early Cambrian
extensional fault
systems that predated formation of the Tobosa
Basin, an ancestral sag basin that existed prior to late Paleozoic
foreland deformation and development of the Permian Basin.
Soon after deposition of the Strawn carbonate ramp facies during
a middle Pennsylvanian phase of relative tectonic quiescence,
renewed and amplified right-lateral convergence (i.e., dextral
transpression) enhanced structural relief along the flanks of the
asymmetrically faulted anticlines that are widely distributed
across the Permian Basin region. Variable erosion across the
crests of these asymmetric anticlines created tectonically
enhanced unconformities that may have influenced porosity and
permeability distributions within sub-unconformity lower and
middle Paleozoic strata. 3D seismic volumes from the southwest
Midland Basin show that some of these faulted anticlines also
have resolvable
fault
and fracture systems that might have
influenced production from Strawn and older strata. During late
Pennsylvanian through Permian Wolfcampian time, widespread
en echelon folding and faulting across the basin diminished,
although right-lateral convergence continued and was mostly
accommodated along the boundaries of the CBP as oblique-slip
deformation and contraction. This last phase of deformation
is dominantly expressed as steeply dipping reverse faults and
asymmetrical flower structures along the boundary
fault
zones
of the CBP. Major uplift of the CBP also occurred during this
last phase of intraforeland deformation and the CBP served as
the source for wedge-shaped, upper Pennsylvanian through
Permian Wolfcampian synorogenic periplatform deposits.
The entire area returned to tectonically stable conditions during
Leonardian time, which allowed development of extensive
carbonate platforms that built away from the structural margins
of the CBP.
End_of_Record - Last_Page 39---------------