The structure and stratigraphy of the sedimentary succession in the Swedish sector of the Baltic Basin: New insights from vintage 2D marine seismic data

Abstract

We present five interpreted regional seismic profiles, describing the full sedimentary sequence across the Swedish sector of the Baltic Sea. The data for the study are part of an extensive and largely unpublished 2D seismic dataset acquired between 1970 and 1990 by the Swedish Oil Prospecting Company (OPAB). The Baltic Basin is an intracratonic basin located in northern Europe. Most of the Swedish sector of the basin constitutes the NW flank of a broad synclinal depression, the Baltic Basin. In the SW of the Swedish sector lies the Hanö Bay Basin, formed by subsidence associated with inversion of the Tornquist Zone during the Late Cretaceous.The geological history presented here is broadly consistent with previously published works. We observe an area between the Hanö Bay and the Baltic Basin where the Palaeozoic strata has been affected by transpression and subsequent inversion, associated with the Tornquist Zone during the late Carboniferous–Early Permian and Late Cretaceous, respectively. We propose that the Christiansø High was a structural low during the Late Jurassic, which was later inverted in the Late Cretaceous. We suggest that a fan shaped feature in the seismic data, adjacent to the Christiansø Fault within the Hanö Bay Basin, represents rapidly deposited, coarse-grained sediments eroded from the inverted Christiansø High during the Late Cretaceous. We identify a number of faults within the deeper part of the Baltic Basin, which we also interpret to be transpressional in nature, formed during the Caledonian Orogeny in the Late Silurian–Early Devonian. East of Gotland a number of sedimentary structures consisting of Silurian carbonate reefs and Ordovician carbonate mounds, as well as a large Quaternary glacial feature are observed. Finally, we use the seismic interpretation to infer the structural and stratigraphic history of the Baltic and Hanö Bay basins within the Swedish sector.