Interpretation of 3rd order depositional sequences in the Mesozoic of the Prebetic and the Miocene of the Gulf of Valencia: an approximation to its sedimentary architecture

Abstract

In the 1980s and 1990s the interpretation of the depositional sequences and the system tracts that they are made up of was one of the most evident advances that could be applied to the geological interpretation of the platform, slope and basins. Since then, there have been no notable conceptual changes, which is why studies from the 1990s can be considered again as long as they were conceived according to the basic rules of interpretation: the existence of three sea level episodes, low (LST and SMW), transgressive (TST) and high (HST) which differentiate the areas of erosion and deposit from the sedimentary inputs to be distributed by the marine environment which receives them. The Prebetic and the Gulf of Valencia cross section that can be constructed by the interpretation of sedimentary columns provided by some deep wells are the object of this paper and allow us to differentiate a minimum of 51 or 52 depositional sequences of 2nd and 3rd order that make it possible to draw the sedimentary architecture and characterize the three stages that formed its apparent complexity: the rift phase (Triassic-Lower Jurassic, with 5 or 6 depositional sequences), the passive margin phase (Middle Jurassic-Lower Miocene, with 36 depositional sequences) and the molasses phase (Miocene, with 9 depositional sequences). Such an interpretation cannot be made for the Paleogene and Neogene of the Prebetic due to the absence of wells that could to test this characterization.