Abstract
Present-day catchments adjacent to sedimentary basins may preserve geomorphic elements that have been active through long intervals of time. Relicts of ancient catchments in present-day landscapes may be investigated using mass-balance models and can give important information about upland landscape evolution and reservoir distribution in adjacent basins. However, such methods are in their infancy and often difficult to apply in deep-time settings due to later landscape modification. The Southern Barents Sea Margin of N Norway and NW Russia is ideal for investigating source-to-sink models, as it has been subject to minor tectonic activity since the Carboniferous, and large parts have eluded significant Quaternary glacial erosion. A zone close-to the present-day coast has likely acted as the boundary between basin and catchments since the Carboniferous. Around the Permian-Triassic transition, a large delta-system started to prograde from the same area as the present-day largest river in the area: the Tana River. The Tana River has long been interpreted to show features indicating that it was developed prior to present-day topography, and we perform a source-to-sink study of this ancient system in order to investigate potential linkages between present-day geomorphology and ancient deposits. We investigate sediment load of the ancient delta using well, core, 2D-, and 3D-seismic data, and digital elevation models to investigate the geomorphology of the onshore catchment and surrounding areas. Our results imply that the present-day Tana catchment was formed close to the Permian-Triassic transition, and that the Triassic delta-system has much better reservoir properties compared to the rest of Triassic basin infill. This implies that landscapes may indeed preserve catchment geometries for extended periods of time, and demonstrate that source-to-sink techniques can be instrumental in predicting extent and quality of subsurface reservoirs.
Highlights
Present-day catchments adjacent to sedi- Triassic delta system has much better resmentary basins may preserve geomorphic ervoir properties compared to the rest of elements that have been active through long Triassic basin infill
A zone close to the present-day coast has important in order to predict sedimentary envilikely acted as the boundary between basin ronments and their link to catchments in areas and catchments since the Carboniferous. with limited data (e.g., Sømme et al, 2009a), Around the Permian-Triassic transition, a since it increases predictability in reservoir large delta system started to prograde from and hydrocarbon exploration (Martinsen et al, the same area as the present-day largest river 2010)
Since there are several lines of evidence suggesting that the earliest Triassic Tana fan of the H1 interval had its apex located close to the mouth of the present-day Tanafjord, we investigated the geomorphology of the present-day Tanafjord, Tana River catchment, and surrounding landscape in northern Norway and Sweden
Summary
The H1 interval of the Havert Formation consists of a sedimentary system sourced from northern Fennoscandia, and it is mineralogically and sedimentologically distinct from the later systems that prograded into the western Barents Sea from the Uralian foreland basin and Kara Sea during the Triassic. The lack of larger protrusions in the Induan sedimentary systems in front of the currently large Alta and Pasvik catchments may be due to the fact that these catchments were much smaller during the Early Triassic than they are today These observations support that the Tana catchment geometry was developed prior to the Quaternary glaciations, and that its present form has experienced minor glacial erosion, but that the catchment may have been larger prior to the Quaternary glaciations due evidence of glacial modifications of the eastern and coastal parts and possible river capture in the west. The preferred catchment area for the Tana Mechanism for Sudden Sediment Influx fan of the H1 interval is 5 times larger than the after the Permian-Triassic Transition present-day Tana River catchment. Creased influx indicates an increase of fine-grained sediment, and the progradation
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