A sequence stratigraphic model for an intensely bioturbated shallow‐marine sandstone: the Bridport Sand Formation, Wessex Basin, UK

Abstract

AbstractThe Bridport Sand Formation is an intensely bioturbated sandstone that represents part of a mixed siliciclastic‐carbonate shallow‐marine depositional system. At outcrop and in subsurface cores, conventional facies analysis was combined with ichnofabric analysis to identify facies successions bounded by a hierarchy of key stratigraphic surfaces. The geometry of these surfaces and the lateral relationships between the facies successions that they bound have been constrained locally using 3D seismic data. Facies analysis suggests that the Bridport Sand Formation represents progradation of a low‐energy, siliciclastic shoreface dominated by storm‐event beds reworked by bioturbation. The shoreface sandstones form the upper part of a thick (up to 200 m), steep (2–3°), mud‐dominated slope that extends into the underlying Down Cliff Clay. Clinoform surfaces representing the shoreface‐slope system are grouped into progradational sets. Each set contains clinoform surfaces arranged in a downstepping, offlapping manner that indicates forced‐regressive progradation, which was punctuated by flooding surfaces that are expressed in core and well‐log data. In proximal locations, progradational shoreface sandstones (corresponding to a clinoform set) are truncated by conglomerate lags containing clasts of bored, reworked shoreface sandstones, which are interpreted as marking sequence boundaries. In medial locations, progradational clinoform sets are overlain across an erosion surface by thin (<5 m) bioclastic limestones that record siliciclastic‐sediment starvation during transgression. Near the basin margins, these limestones are locally thick (>10 m) and overlie conglomerate lags at sequence boundaries. Sequence boundaries are thus interpreted as being amalgamated with overlying transgressive surfaces, to form composite erosion surfaces. In distal locations, oolitic ironstones that formed under conditions of extended physical reworking overlie composite sequence boundaries and transgressive surfaces. Over most of the Wessex Basin, clinoform sets (corresponding to high‐frequency sequences) are laterally offset, thus defining a low‐frequency sequence architecture characterized by high net siliciclastic sediment input and low net accommodation. Aggradational stacking of high‐frequency sequences occurs in fault‐bounded depocentres which had higher rates of localized tectonic subsidence.