The sedimentological and diagenetic evolution of the Ratburi Limestone, Peninsular Thailand

Abstract

The late Middle to early Late Permian Ratburi Limestone in Peninsular Thailand is a warm-water carbonate deposit formed in an extensive platform setting, suggesting that the Shan Thai craton occupied a subtropical-tropical position at this time. The distribution of facies, from peritidal, fenestral and algal laminated muds, to subtidal skeletal and ooid grainstones, bryozoa boundstones and carbonate slope deposits, is controlled by the platform topography, which is thought to have been controlled by extensional tectonics. Early diagenesis of the platform began with seawater-influenced dolomitisation, followed by uplift, producing karstification, in response to the Late Permian Indosinian orogeny. East dipping subduction of the Indian Ocean Plate resulted in granite magmatism in the peninsula during the Cretaceous. The effect on the Ratburi Limestone included neomorphism, dissolution, calcite cementation and dolomitisation. The petroleum potential of Ratburi Limestone comes from the extensive and long karstic history (Late Permian and Tertiary-present day) and the source potential of the widespread platform carbonate mudstone ( TOC <4.5%) .