Comments on the pattern of post-rift subsidence in the Central and Northern North Sea Basin

Abstract

Abstract Burial history analyses suggest that the post-rift subsidence history of the Central and Northern North Sea Basin is poorly explained by published models of thermal subsidence. The last rifting episode took place during the Late Jurassic. The early post-rift phase (earliest Cretaceous to Danian) was characterized by slow subsidence, with much of the sedimentation accommodated by the infilling of previously developed rift bathymetry. At this time the shoulders of the rift were supported. During the earliest Cretaceous to Danian, the Central and Northern North Sea Basin was situated in a continental interior, and its morphology and subsidence style resembled that of many modern intra-continental rifts. Sub-sequently, rates of subsidence increased markedly; this acceleration in subsidence was particularly pronounced in the region of the rift shoulders. The timing of the accelration was approximately mid-Palaeocene, the time at which the Norwegian-Greenland Sea opened immediately to the north of the North Sea Basin. It is suggested that there are differences between the subsidence rates and styles of extensional basins in intra-continental and continental margin settings which are not predicted by published models.