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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
AAPG Bulletin
Abstract
AAPG Bulletin, V.
Evolution of stratigraphic sequences in multisegmented continental rift basins: Comparison of computer models with the basins of the East African rift system
Juan Contreras,1 Christopher H. Scholz2
1Departamento de Geologia, Centro de Investigacion
Cientifica y de
Education Superior de Ensenada, Km 107 Carretera Tijuana-Ensenada, Ensenada BC 22860, Mexico; email: [email protected]
2Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, P. O. Box 1000, Palisades, New York, 10964; email: [email protected]
AUTHORS
Juan Contreras earned a B.S. degree in geological engineering and an M.S. degree in geophysics at the National University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1989 and 1993, respectively. He received a Ph.D. in tectonophysics at Columbia University in May 2000. Currently he is an associate researcher at Centro de Investigacion Cientifica y de Education Superior de Ensenada (CICESE) in Mexico. His interests include application of continuum mechanics theory to model geological processes such as deformation, erosion, and sedimentation.
Christopher H. Scholz is professor of geophysics and applied mathematics at Columbia University. He received a B.S. degree in geological engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno (1964) and a Ph.D. at M.I.T. (1967). He is interested in all aspects of brittle tectonics. He is the author of more than 150 articles and two books: The Mechanics of Earthquakes and Faulting (Cambridge, 1990) and Fieldwork: A Geologist's Memoir of the Kalahari (Princeton, 1997).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We wish to thank AAPG reviewers C. Ebinger and A. Younes for their comments, which substantially improved the manuscript. We would also like to thank Roy W. Schlische and Pratap Sahay for helpful additional comments. Support was provided by a grant from the Mexican National Science Council I32899-T (to Contreras) and NSF grant EAR 97-06475 (to Scholz).
ABSTRACT
This article presents a series of numerical simulations of the stratigraphic evolution of continental rift basins. We model the geomorphic and tectonic processes acting in this depositional environment, which contrasts with the traditional approach of 
modeling
the settling of sediments, especially in marine clastic basins. What is new in our model is that it can simulate the formation of basins with linked half grabens, which is a fundamental feature of rift systems.
The attributes of the numerical simulations such as the overall morphology, basin architecture, drainage systems, and stratigraphy are in good agreement with digital elevation models and reflection seismic
lines of the basins of the East African rift system, specifically the Tanganyika and Malawi rifts.
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