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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
AAPG Bulletin
Abstract
AAPG Bulletin, V.
2004. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.
A structural interpretation of the Fish Creek Slide (Lower Cretaceous), northern Alaska
Thomas X. Homza
BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., P.O. Box 196612, 900 East Benson Blvd., Anchorage, Alaska 99519; present address: EnCana Oil Gas (U.S.A.) Inc., 3601 C Street, Suite 1334, Anchorage, Alaska 99503; [email protected]
AUTHOR
Tom Homza is an exploration geologist for EnCana Oil Gas (U.S.A.) Inc. He is currently working in EnCana's Alaska Office, which he helped launch and he presently manages. He holds an M.S. degree and a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and a B.S. degree in geology from the University of Vermont. Tom spent seven years at BP, where he worked in both exploration and development geology in several basins.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., Phillips Petroleum Company (now ConocoPhillips), and Chevron U.S.A. (now ChevronTexaco) for permission to publish this work. Although the interpretations are my own, my understanding of the slide was enhanced by conversations with several colleagues at BP: Roy Allen, Greg Brewton, Mick Casey, Bret Chambers, Erik Hulm, Robert Humphreys, Sarah Lewis, Gary Pelka, and Jennifer Snow; Chevron: Art Bradley, Buddy Snell, Russ Warner, and Bob Wright; and Phillips: Don Griffiths, Allen Huckabay, and Frank Snyder. Paul Weimer, David Houseknecht, Ken Bird, and Gil Mull reviewed early versions of this paper. I thank Steven Boyer, Russell Davies, and John Lorenz for their helpful edits.
ABSTRACT
Modern three-dimensional seismic imaging enables a basic geometric description and kinematic interpretation of part of the Fish Creek Slide, a massive (4000 km2; 1500 mi2) slope failure beneath Alaska's North Slope. The Fish Creek Slide is divided into a dominantly extensional organized slide zone in the west and a mostly contractional disorganized slide zone in the east. In the organized slide zone, a series of six organized slide blocks detached from the lower slope along steep escarpments during an inferred Albian earthquake focused at depth on a preexisting southeast-striking fault. Blocks were transported eastward into the basin as failure progressed catastrophically yet systematically by northwestward, en echelon, upslope, footwall collapse. During slide evolution, the primary flat detachment switched from the highly radioactive zone down stratigraphic section to the Lower Cretaceous unconformity. Although the seismic interpretation is hampered by a variety of slide-induced signal problems, several significant, previously unrecognized elements of the Fish Creek Slide are described: shear zones related to displacement variations in the slide, duplex structures in the slide blocks, postslide erosional features, and axial structural lows in slide blocks.
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