Rifting processes in NW-Germany and the German North Sea Sector

Abstract

Since the beginning of the development of the North German Basin in Stephanian to Early Rotliegend times, rifting played a major role. Nearly all structures in NW-Germany and the German North Sea -(more than 800) -salt diapirs, grabens, inverted grabens and inversion structures -are genetically related to rifting. Today, the rifting periods are well dated. We find signs of dilatation at all times except from the Late Aptian to the end of the Turonian. To the contrary, the period of the Coniacian and Santonian, lasting only five million years was a time of compression, transpression, crustal shortening and inversion. Rifting activities decreased notably after inversion in Late Cretaceous times. Tertiary movements concentrated on a limited number of major, long existing lineaments. Seismically today NW-Germany and the German North Sea sector is one of the quietest regions in Central Europe.

3D reconstruction of salt movements within the deepest post-Permian structure of the Central European Basin System - the Glueckstadt Graben

“…The next step towards an integrated study of the GG was done by Baldschuhn et al (1996Baldschuhn et al ( , 2001 who provided the Geotectonic Atlas of NW Germany. Kockel (2002Kockel ( , 2003 described the major evolutionary steps of the NW Germany. At the beginning of this century, the area under consideration became of additional interest because seismic and well data were provided by the oil and gas industry through the German Society for Petroleum and Coal Science and Technology (DGMK) in frame of the DFG-SPP 1135 "Dynamics of sedimentary systems under varying stress conditions by example of the Central European Basin system".…”

“…The major stages of salt movements occurred during the Triassic, creating significant space for additional sedimentation. This period of salt tectonics was associated with extension, reflecting a discrete pulse of tectonic activity in the Triassic (Ziegler, 1990;Vejbaek, 1990;Kockel, 2002;Scheck et al, 2003a;Krzywiec, 2004;Maystrenko et al, 2005a). At the regional scale, the Triassic corresponds to a period of global plate reorganization, marking the beginning break-up of Pangea (Ziegler, 1990).…”

Fluid evolution and mineralogy of Mn-Fe-barite-fluorite mineralizations at the contact of the Thuringian Basin, Thüringer Wald and Thüringer Schiefergebirge in Germany

“…3, 4), which show that the barite veins occupy the extensional structures and are cut and offset by the later contractional deformation. According to the observations from the North German Basin, the main period of NE-SW extension lasted from Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous times (Betz et al 1987;Ziegler 1987;Kockel 2002) and, therefore, the barite mineralization must be placed in the time interval between the Middle Jurassic and Early Cretaceous.…”

Quantitative fracture prediction from seismic data

“…2). Post-Variscan rifting produced a system of graben and half-graben, affecting Carboniferous to Permian rocks (Betz et al 1987;Brink et al 1992;Kockel 2002). The basin contains Mesozoic to Cenozoic sediments of up to 10 km in thickness (Plein 1995;Baldschuhn et al 1996).…”

“…The sedimentary North German Basin (NGB) has been affected by a variety of deformational events since Permian time (Ziegler 1990;Scheck & Bayer 1999;Kockel 2002;Kossow & Krawczyk 2002). These events vary primarily in the magnitude of deformation and in the strain accumulation in space and time.…”