A basin-scale perspective on Cenomanian-Turonian (Cretaceous) depositional systems, greater Gulf of Mexico (USA)

Snedden, John W.; Virdell, Jon W.; Whiteaker, T.; Ganey-Curry, Patty

doi:10.1190/int-2015-0082.1

Cited by 43 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 25 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…These sedimentary patterns are influenced by the salt tectonics of the northern Gulf of Mexico; Norton penetrates a shallow salt carapace (i.e., a condensed sedimentary section on top of allochthonous salt), Appomattox drilled a salt raft (i.e., a block of sediments that has moved along a detachment surface based in salt), and Tiber is in a low-relief anticline below the salt canopy. Stratigraphic correlation and age assignments follow Snedden et al (2016), which in turn follows the Gulf of Mexico Zonation scheme of Olson, Snedden, and Cunningham (2015).…”

Section: Study Sitesmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…Calculated and measured TOC data (Figure 8) indicate that the Cenomanian-Turonian rocks (as defined by Snedden et al, 2016) in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico are generally enriched in organic matter. Isolated from the siliciclastic dilution of the deepwater sandstone fairways as a carapace block on top of allochthonous salt, the Norton well contains an EFT supersequence which is fairly condensed and enriched in organic matter throughout (Cunningham et al, 2016) (Figure 8).…”

Section: Oae2 In the Deepwater Gulf Of Mexicomentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Northern Gulf of Mexico During OAE2 and the Relationship Between Water Depth and Black Shale Development

et al. 2017

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Despite their name, Oceanic Anoxic Events (OAEs) are not periods of uniform anoxia and black shale deposition in ancient oceans. Shelf environments account for the majority of productivity and organic carbon burial in the modern ocean, and this was likely true in the Cretaceous as well. However, it is unlikely that the mechanisms for such an increase were uniform across all shelf environments. Some, like the northwest margin of Africa, were characterized by strong upwelling, but what might drive enhanced productivity on shelves not geographically suited for upwelling? To address this, we use micropaleontology, carbon isotopes, and sedimentology to present the first record of Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 (OAE2) from the northern Gulf of Mexico shelf. Here OAE2 occurred during the deposition of the well‐oxygenated, inner neritic/lower estuarine Lower Tuscaloosa Sandstone. The overlying organic‐rich oxygen‐poor Marine Tuscaloosa Shale is entirely Turonian in age. We trace organic matter enrichment from the Spinks Core into the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, where wireline log calculations and public geochemical data indicate organic enrichment and anoxia throughout the Cenomanian‐Turonian boundary interval. Redox change and organic matter preservation across the Gulf of Mexico shelf were driven by sea level rise prior to the early Turonian highstand, which caused the advection of nutrient‐rich, oxygen‐poor waters onto the shelf. This results in organic matter mass accumulation rates 1–2 orders of magnitude lower than upwelling sites like the NW African margin, but it likely occurred over a much larger geographic area, suggesting that sea level rise was an important component of the overall increase in carbon burial during OAE2.

show abstract

Section: Study Sitesmentioning

confidence: 83%

Section: Oae2 In the Deepwater Gulf Of Mexicomentioning

confidence: 99%

The Northern Gulf of Mexico During OAE2 and the Relationship Between Water Depth and Black Shale Development

et al. 2017

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The oldest unit of interest here is the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) TuscaloosaWoodbine trend, which represents the first major episode of clastic shelfmargin progradation into the GoM (Galloway, 2008;Snedden et al, 2016). The sandrich lower Tuscaloosa Group crops out from Alabama through Mississippi, whereas the sandrich lower Woodbine Group crops out through southern Oklahoma and northcentral Texas.…”

Section: Gulf Of Mexico Basin Fillmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detrital-zircon records of Cenomanian, Paleocene, and Oligocene Gulf of Mexico drainage integration and sediment routing: Implications for scales of basin-floor fans

et al. 2017

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper uses detrital zircon (DZ) provenance and geochronological data to reconstruct paleodrainage areas and lengths for sediment-routing systems that fed the Cenomanian Tuscaloosa-Woodbine, Paleocene Wilcox, and Oligo cene Vicksburg-Frio clastic wedges of the northern Gulf of Mexico (GoM) margin. During the Cenomanian, an ancestral Tennessee-Alabama River system with a distinctive Appalachian DZ signature was the largest system contributing water and sediment to the GoM, with a series of smaller systems draining the Ouachita Mountains and discharging sediment to the western GoM. By early Paleocene Wilcox deposition, drainage of the southern half of North America had reorganized such that GoM contributing areas stretched from the Western Cordillera to the Appalachians, and sediment was delivered to a primary depocenter in the northwestern GoM, the Rockdale depocenter fed by a paleo-Brazos-Colorado River system, as well as to the paleo-Mississippi River in southern Louisiana. By the Oligocene, the western drainage divide for the GoM had migrated east to the Laramide Rockies, with much of the Rockies now draining through the paleo-Red River and paleo-Arkansas River systems to join the paleo-Mississippi River in the southern Mississippi embayment. The paleo-Tennessee River had diverted to the north toward its present-day junction with the Ohio River by this time, thus becoming a tributary to the paleo-Mississippi within the northern Mississippi embayment. Hence, the paleo-Mississippi was the largest Oligocene system of the northern GoM margin. Drainage basin organization has had a profound impact on sediment delivery to the northern GoM margin. We use paleodrainage reconstructions to predict scales of associated basin-floor fans and test our predictions against measurements made from an extensive GoM database. We predict large fan systems for the Cenomanian paleo-Tennessee-Alabama, and especially for the two major depocenters of the early Paleocene paleo-Brazos-Colorado and late Paleocene-earliest Eocene paleo-Mississippi systems, and for the Oligocene paleo-Mississippi. With the notable exception of the Oligocene, measured fans reside within the range of our predictions, indicating that this approach can be exported to other basins that are less data rich.

show abstract

“…Our paleogeographic and sand-body thickness maps are updated on a regular basis, with continuing release of U.S. oil and gas industry well logs about two years after drilling or immediately upon license relinquishment. Selected maps are published on a regular basis for evaluation and testing by others (e.g., Galloway et al, 2011;Fulthorpe et al, 2014;Snedden et al, 2012Snedden et al, , 2016. Catchment and paleogeographic maps pertinent to this study are included in Figures S1-S8 [footnote 1]).…”

Section: Datasetmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Namibia, for example, uplift and erosion removed large portions of the onshore record of Early Cretaceous river systems and drainage basins (Green et al, 2009), challenging efforts at Snedden et al | Source-to-sink scaling relationships in a continental-scale system GEOSPHERE | Volume 14 | Number 2 sediment mass-balance estimation (Rouby et al, 2009). The approach taken here might be used to fill in the fragmentary older landscape archive in many areas, as Blum and Pecha (2014) and Snedden et al (2016) have attempted for Cretaceous strata of the northern Gulf of Mexico.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Validation of empirical source-to-sink scaling relationships in a continental-scale system: The Gulf of Mexico basin Cenozoic record

et al. 2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Empirical scaling relationships between known deepwater siliciclastic submarine fan systems and their linked drainage basins have previously been established for modern to submodern depositional systems and in a few ancient, small-scale basins. Comprehensive mapping in the subsurface Gulf of Mexico basin and geological mapping of the North American drainage network facilitates a more rigorous test of scaling relationships in a continental-size system with multiple mountain source terranes, rivers, deltas, slopes, and abyssal plain fan systems formed over 65 m.y. of geologic time. An immense database of drilled wells and high-quality industry seismic data in this prolific hydrocarbon basin provide the independent measure of deepwater fan distribution and dimensions necessary to test source-to-sink system scaling relationships.Analysis of over 40 documented deepwater fan and apron systems in the Gulf of Mexico, ranging in age from Paleocene to Pleistocene, reveals that submarine-fan system scales vary predictably with catchment length and area. All fan system run-out lengths, as measured from shelf margin to mapped fan termination, fall in a range of 10%-50% of the drainage basin length, and most are comparable in scale to large (Mississippi River-scale) systems although some smaller fans are present (e.g., Oligocene Rio Bravo system). For larger systems such as those of the Paleocene Wilcox depositional episodes, fan runout lengths generally fall in the range of 10%-25% of the longest river length. Submarine fan widths, mapped from both seismic reflection data and well control, appear to scale with fan run-out lengths, though with a lower correlation (R 2 = 0.40) probably due to uncertainty in mapping fan width in some subsalt settings. Catchment area has a high correlation (R 2 = 0.85) with river length, suggesting that fluvial discharge and sediment flux may be primary drivers of ancient fan size.Validation of these first-order source-to-sink scaling relationships provides a predictive tool in frontier basins with less data. Application to less-constrained early Eocene fan systems of the southern Gulf of Mexico demonstrates the utility for exploration as well as paleogeographic reconstructions of ancient drainage systems. This approach has considerable utility in estimating dimensions of known but poorly constrained submarine fans in the subsurface or exposed in outcrop.

show abstract

A basin-scale perspective on Cenomanian-Turonian (Cretaceous) depositional systems, greater Gulf of Mexico (USA)

Cited by 43 publications

References 25 publications

The Northern Gulf of Mexico During OAE2 and the Relationship Between Water Depth and Black Shale Development

The Northern Gulf of Mexico During OAE2 and the Relationship Between Water Depth and Black Shale Development

Detrital-zircon records of Cenomanian, Paleocene, and Oligocene Gulf of Mexico drainage integration and sediment routing: Implications for scales of basin-floor fans

Validation of empirical source-to-sink scaling relationships in a continental-scale system: The Gulf of Mexico basin Cenozoic record

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About