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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
AAPG Special Volumes
Abstract
Rick
Sarg
Seismic
imaging of carbonate reservoirs and systems
2004. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.
Carbonate Platform to Basin Transitions on
Seismic
Data and in Outcrops: Great Bahama Bank and the Maiella Platform Margin, Italy
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Gregor P. Eberli,1 Flavio S. Anselmetti,2 Christian Betzler,3 Jan-Henk Van Konijnenburg,4 Daniel Bernoulli5
1University of Miami, Miami, Florida, U.S.A.
2Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland
3Geologisch-Palaeontologisches Institut, Hamburg, Germany
4Sarawak Shell Bhd, Sarawak, Malaysia
5University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A lot of the data for this comparison between Great Bahama Bank and the Maiella Platform margin was assembled in two large research efforts. The Maiella Platform margin was studied over 10 yr under the guidance of Daniel Bernoulli in projects funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grants 20-20-27 457.89, 20-45131.95, and 20-359007.92). Many of the ideas were discussed and tested by the students and postdocs who worked in the Maiella. We thank them all for their input. The Bahamas Transect was also a long-term research effort that started with donations of the seismic
lines from Texaco Inc. and Western Geophysical to the Comparative Sedimentology Laboratory at the University of Miami. Two cores along the western
seismic
line that were drilled in the Bahamas Drilling Project, under the guidance of Robert Ginsburg, provided the first calibration of the
seismic
transect. Funds for the drilling, coring, and logging were provided by a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant (OCE-8917295) and contributions from the industrial associates to the Comparative Sedimentology Laboratory and the Swiss National Science Foundation. Subsequent funds for laboratory analyses of cores and logs came from grants from the NSF (OCE-9204294) and the Department of Energy (DE-FG05-92ER14253). The
seismic
data acquisition and interpretation of the
seismic
data along the western margin of the Great Bahama Bank was funded by NSF grant OCE-9314586 (to G. P. Eberli, D. F. McNeill, and P. K. Swart). This grant included a subcontract to Rice University for data acquisition on the R/V Lone Star. Andr
Droxler and John Anderson tailored the acquisition system to fit our needs. An upgrade of the
seismic
processing facility by NSF grant OCE-9615141 (to C. Scholz and G. P. Eberli) improved the data presentation.
Ground truthing of the seismic
data was provided by the cores recovered during Ocean Drilling Program Leg 166. We thank the scientific shipboard party and the technical staff on the Joides Resolution for all their input. Funding from JOI-USSAC grant 166F000330 (to G. P. Eberli) and the Industrial Associates of the Comparative Sedimentology Laboratory paid for subsequent core and
seismic
analyses. Christian Betzler received grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (projects 1272/5 and 1272/6) for his analysis of the slope deposits.
The manuscript benefited significantly from the careful reviews, comments, and suggestions of Associate Editor J. Frederick Rick
Sarg and the two reviewers, Steve Bachtel and Jim Weber.
ABSTRACT
The comparison of seismic
and core data from the western Great Bahama Bank with the exhumed Maiella Platform margin and its adjacent slope in the Apennines of Italy relates the
seismic
facies to depositional facies and processes. Both platforms evolved similarly from an escarpment-bounded, aggrading platform in the Cretaceous to a prograding platform in the Tertiary. This comparison helps to improve
seismic
interpretation of isolated carbonate platform systems.
Platform interior deposits are typically horizontally layered cycles of shallow-water carbonates, but the seismic
sections from Great Bahama Bank are dominated by a chaotic to transparent
seismic
facies. Synthetic
seismic
sections of the Maiella Platform margin demonstrate that the chaotic to transparent
seismic
facies is a product of low-impedance contrasts in the platform carbonates. Both platforms were bounded in the Cretaceous by an escarpment that separated the platform from onlapping basinal and slope sediments. This juxtaposition of facies is recorded in the
seismic
facies by the lateral change from chaotic platform to inclined continuous reflections of the slope. The outcrops of the Maiella Platform margin help assess the processes that formed these escarpments. Small concave scallops and associated megabreccias in the basinal section document episodic erosion during the platform growth, indicating that the escarpment was growing simultaneously with the platform.
Both platforms prograde after burial of the escarpment by basinal sediments. On the western margin of the Great Bahama Bank, progradation started in the middle Miocene and advanced the platform margin approximately 25 km westward to its present position. Progradation is documented on the seismic
data by clinoform geometry and the expansion of the interpreted platform
seismic
facies. The prograding system of western Great Bahama Bank consists of sigmoidal clinoforms with foresets that are approximately 600 m high. The foresets are characterized by reflections with variable amplitude and continuity. Discontinuous high-amplitude packages are interrupted by low-amplitude, nearly transparent units of periplatform ooze. Channels of variable size dissect the entire slope but deep incisions with a persistent cut-and-fill geometry occur preferentially at sequence boundaries. These incised submarine canyons are oriented downslope perpendicular to the strike of the platform margin. Most of the gravity-flow deposits bypassed the upper and middle slope and are deposited on the lower slope and on the toe-of-slope. These redeposited carbonates are seismically characterized by discontinuous to chaotic high-amplitude reflections that suggest a heterogeneous environment of depositional lobes.
Core data indicate that a tripartite facies succession of slope, reef margin, and platform interior deposits forms the topsets of the prograding clinoforms on Great Bahama Bank. This facies succession is also found in the Maiella Platform margin that prograded across the underlying slope during Eocene time. Synthetic seismic
sections show that the reefal units appear as transparent zones on the
seismic
data, corroborating the calibration made by a core-to-
seismic
correlation in the Bahamas.
Along the Maiella Platform margin, incised slope canyons are exposed, revealing the lithologies of the channel fills. The Maiella canyons are filled with coarse, fining-upward mass gravity-flow deposits that fine upward. The outcrops in the Gran Sasso area display the heterogeneity of the toe-of-slope environment that is characterized by small, amalgamated lobes with feeder channels in largely pelagic background sediment.
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