Tertiary Reefs Research Articles

Formation and evolution of the tertiary carbonate reefs in the Madura Strait Basin of Indonesia

Analysis of 2D seismic data over 4 500 km in length from the Madura Strait Basin in the East Java Sea reveals seismic reflection characteristics of reefs and associated sedimentary bodies, including asymmetrical or symmetrical dome reflections, slope progradational reflections, chaotic reflections and discontinuous strong reflections inside the reef, which onlap the flank of the reef. It is concluded that the developmental paleo-environment of most reefs is mainly conducive to shallow marine carbonate platform facies and platform margin facies, based on well core data, variations in seismic facies and strata thickness. The formation and evolution of all reefs are primarily influenced by the tectonic framework of the Madura Strait Basin. Platform margin reefs are principally controlled by two types of structures: one is a series of E-W trending Paleogene normal faults, and the other is an E-W trending Neogene inversion structures. In addition, wave actions, tidal currents and other ocean currents play an accelerated role in sorting, rounding and redeposition for the accumulation and evolution of reefs. Tertiary reefs in the MSB can be divided into four types: 1) an open platform coral reef of Late Oligocene to Early Miocene, 2) a platform margin coral reef controlled by normal faults in Late Oligocene to Early Miocene, 3) a platform margin Globigerina moundreef controlled by a “hidden” inversion structure in Early Pliocene, and 4) a platform margin Globigerina mound-reef controlled by thrust faults in the early Pliocene. Patterns of the formation and evolution of reefs are also suggested.

ABSTRACT: Tertiary Reefs of the South China Sea and their Oil-Gas Bearing Characters

ABSTRACT: Tertiary Reefs of the South China Sea and their Oil-Gas Bearing Characters

A Paleocene coral—algal—sponge reef from southwestern Alabama and the ecology of Early Tertiary reefs

The Late Paleocene Salt Mountain Limestone from southwestern Alabama is a coral-algal-sponge buildup which further characterizes the faunal makeup of early post-Cretaceous reefs. Thin sectioning has disclosed a variety of lithologies, including large foram-algal packstone, algal bindstone, and sponge bafflestone. A low-diversity fauna of massive scleractinian corals caps the sequence, but may be developed intermittently throughout the section as well. The constructional importance of coralline algae and the low diversity of scleractinian corals are characteristic of Paleocene reefs in general. Sponges, however, are virtually unknown in earliest Tertiary sediments. Their abundance in the Salt Mountain demonstrates not only their local contribution to Early Tertiary reefs, but may also reflect an opportunistic response of sponges as reef constructors following the extinction of oligotrophic, rudist-coral reef communities of the Late Cretaceous. □Paleocene, reef, paleoecology, sponges, extinction.

Local Carbonate Production on a Terrigenous Shelf: ABSTRACT

During the past 10 years, the Department of Oceanography at Texas A&M University has been involved in investigating reefs and banks on the Texas-Louisiana outer continental shelf. Studies were conducted on the geologic structure, sediment distribution, biology, and water and sediment dynamics at over 30 reefs and banks. Because of the influence of the Mississippi River and other streams, the dominant sediments in this part of the Gulf of Mexico are terrigenous sands and muds. Uplift of the sea floor caused by salt diapirism exposes bed rock that serves as a substrate for colonization by calcareous organisms. Sediment facies and biologic zones at the Flower Garden Banks are closely related. The presence of a bathymetric high influences the direction and velocity of bottom currents. Factors that control sediment facies are biologic components and depth of the nepheloid layer (turbid water). Factors that control biologic zonation are the nature of the substrate, the water depth, and the depth of the nepheloid layer. No land-derived sediment (silt and clay) are present above a depth of 75 m. Studies of the physical characteristics of the water column indicate End_Page 1429------------------------------ that the nepheloid layer rarely rises to depths of 75 m. The 80-m depth contour marks a major boundary between biologic communities. That depth separates the turbid water fauna below from the clear water fauna and flora above. The east and west Flower Garden Banks serve as modern analogs of Tertiary reefs, such as the Oligocene reef at Damon Mound, Brazoria County, Texas. The sediment facies are similar, even to the muddy Porites gravels and Heterostegina sands that were deposited under an Oligocene nepheloid layer. End_of_Article - Last_Page 1430------------

Holocene Carbonate Facies of Pulau Seribu Patch-Reef Complex, West Java Sea: ABSTRACT

End_Page 270------------------------------The Pulau Seribu patch-reef complex, located 50 km northwest of Jakarta, is elliptical in plan view, measuring 40 km north-south and 12 km east-west. Individual reefs range in length from 50 m to over 6 km, show a strong east-west lineation due to seasonal winds and currents, and grow up into the intertidal zone. Facies mapping (based on 250 bottom samples and Landsat image analysis) shows the extent of reef-crest, reef-flat, beach, island, reef-slope, and lagoonal facies. The reef crest is fairly narrow, flat, continuous along strike, and consists of coral-algal boundstones. The reef framework of predominately platy and branching corals is infilled with coral-skeletal packstones and wackestones and represents a small percentage of reef-related facies developed in the reef complex, being overshadowed by extensive reef flats of coral-skeletal packstones. Commonly, beach and island facies of coral-skeletal grainstones occur near the center of individual patch reefs. In front of the reef crest, an apron of reef-derived coral-skeletal packstones is deposited as reef-slope facies. This grades downd p into lagoonal facies of highly burrowed molluscan foraminiferal wackestone and packstone and coral molluscan wackestone and packstone, both with low TOC values that indicate no source rock potential. Pulau Seribu is an important lithofacies model for better understanding Tertiary reefs in Indonesia, especially the prolific hydrocarbon reservoirs of northern Sumatra. End_of_Article - Last_Page 271------------

Application of Resistivity Surveys to Regional Hydrogeologic Reconnaissance.

Vertical electrical soundings using DC resistivity methods have been completed along over 60 miles of survey lines in southwest Florida. The resistivity soundings were obtained in order to outline major hydrogeologic features as part of a regional hydrogeologic investigation covering approximately 400 square miles. The two significant hydrogeologic features which can be effectively mapped on a regional scale by DC methods are the presence of shallow, high resistivity limestones associated with late Tertiary reef complexes, and the approximate depth to waters with TDS concentrations well above the potable water limits. The reef limestones commonly exhibit very high transmissivities and are potential sites for ground-water development. The approximate thickness of potable waters allows resource investigations to be limited to the most promising areas and a rough assessment of the total resource to be made for long-term planning. The interpretation and mapping of the resistivity section is accomplished through published resistivity inversion and computer graphics programs. This automated data processing produces resistivity maps and sections without requiring extensive geophysical training of the interpreter. The automatic interpretations compare well with more traditional master curve interpretation procedures, and have the same limitations with equivalence of solutions and geologic correlation, but are produced with considerably less effort.

World Exploration Highlights

High petroleum prices have stimulated worldwide exploration. Better understanding of the basic principles of the origin and primary migration of hydrocarbons and of basin tectonic processes have aided in selecting areas that warrant intensive exploration. There is renewed interest in oil prospects of overthrust belts, and attention has been drawn to the high potential of buried Late Tertiary reefs in tropical regions. Advances in seismic data gathering and processing have greatly increased the usefulness of geophysical surveys, once essentially limited to the search for closed structures. Since 1979, oil production has been found in previously unproductive basins, such as the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, and even in newly discovered basins, including southwestern Sudan and the Gulf of Beibu (Tonkin) off southern China. The most significant oil discovery in recent years is the Hibernia field off Newfoundland. Large gas fields have been found in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, off Cameroun in West Africa, onshore and offshore in Spain, and in Sharjah on the Arabian Peninsula. Numerous other fields have been found throughout the world, but data are insufficient for estimating the size of many of these discoveries, even though some will certainly prove to be in the giant class. Data on the Soviet Union are insufficient for commenting on recent exploration results. > Companies have been granted large new contract areas for petroleum exploration in many countries, some of them in basins already surveyed in reconnaissance, others untouched by modern geophysical methods. Availability of new land rights ensures that the present drive for new oil and gas resources will continue in future years, probably with a similar degree of success.

Uniformitarianism and Tertiary Reef Paleoecology: ABSTRACT

Successful application of knowledge about modern reef ecosystems to Tertiary reef paleoecocystems depends greatly upon the scale at which it is applied. The present is clearly an imperfect key to the past in the comparison of the biogeography and regional ecology of modern reefs with those of the Tertiary. This is largely because the Holocene and Pleistocene ecologic and biogeographic distribution of reef-building scleractinian corals, octocorals, and other key members of the reef community is a relatively recent phenomenon and is not representative of most of the Tertiary. Major changes in reef-coral paleobiogeography and evolution occurred in the late Eocene, at the end of the Oligocene, in the middle Miocene and at the end of the Pliocene. A worldwide change in the ecology of shallow-reef communities occurred in the early Pleistocene with the great diversification and growth luxuriance of predominantly branching species of reef-cor ls with light, rapidly growing skeletons accompanied by the proliferation of the hydrozoan Millepora. Most of these corals belong to the families Acroporidae, Poritidae, and Seriatoporidae. Other more detailed paleoecologic relations may, however, be reconstructed only by strict uniformitarian comparison to living-reef examples because the evidence needed to derive them is not preserved or is incompletely preserved in the fossil record. Some of these include: (a) quantitative estimation for an ancient reef of the standing crop biomass volume and productivity. Many of the biotic components of the benthic reef ecosystem, such as seagrasses, sponges, and octocorals, have little preservation potential; (b) an estimation of the amounts and pathways of energy cycled through the benthic reef paleoecosystems; (c) the presence of symbiotic relations, such as the vital link between hermatypic corals and zooxanthellae; (d) mutualistic and antibiotic relations among encrusters; (e) ediment-rejection potential, especially that of reef corals, octocorals, and sponges; and (f) interspecific aggression among reef corals, although some overgrowth relations may be deduced from the fossil record. End_of_Article - Last_Page 709------------

Recent Knowledge of Hydrocarbon Potentials in Sedimentary Basins of Indonesia: ABSTRACT

Although the search for hydrocarbons in Indonesia was initiated about eight decades ago, exploration work is still at a high level. Recent studies have resulted in a new understanding of the prolific Tertiary sedimentary basins and, especially, knowledge concerning offshore sedimentary basins has been updated significantly. More important, however, is the current knowledge on the mechanism of basin formation which seems to enhance the validity and applicability of the new global tectonics to the geology of Indonesia. The Tertiary sedimentary basins in western Indonesia previously have been described as idiogeosynclines, situated around the periphery of a supposed landmass of pre-Tertiary age (the Sunda Shelf). Recent exploration surveys and subsequent drilling have shown that the southern part of the Sunda Shelf actually consists of many sedimentary basins and intervening uplifts. Major faults are common throughout the area and clearly control the distribution and shapes of the basins. Block faulting appears to have broken up the periphery of the Sunda Shelf at the beginning of Tertiary time. The chief crude-oil production in western Indonesia is from the regressive and deeper transgressive sand series of Oligocene-Miocene age, except in East Kalimantan where producing zones range from Eocene to Pliocene age. Prospects have changed considerably since oil and gas in economic amount have been proved within the interbedded limestone formation of Tertiary age and additional reserves are anticipated within stratigraphic traps. Oil and gas discoveries within deltaic sandstones, notably in East Kalimantan, have upgraded significantly the onshore and offshore potentials of the area. Carbonate rocks are becoming a prime objective in the search for oil, especially in the East Java-Madura basinal area. Although eastern Indonesia was chiefly the site of late Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentation, oil has been proved only within the strata of Tertiary age, notably in the Salawati basin. Of particular importance was the recognition of the tremendous potential that reefs, and in particular Tertiary reefs, possess as hydrocarbon reservoirs. A similar basin and environmental model is anticipated for the Bintuni basin. Scientific cruises within the last five years have indicated the presence of several potential basinal areas between the Sunda Shelf and the Sahul Shelf. The sedimentary basins in Indonesia can be classified into grabenlike basins, present foreland basins, and basins which are in front of the present magmatic arc. End_of_Article - Last_Page 1454------------

Tertiary Reef and Associated Limestone Facies from Louisiana and Guam

Similarities in fossil content and lithology of reef and associated limestone facies from southern Louisiana and Guam indicate that biologically similar reefs existed in these areas during middle Tertiary time. The reefs of southern Louisiana are found in the subsurface Heterostegina zone of late Oligocene or early Miocene age; the outcropping Guam reefs are considered to be of early Miocene age. The geologic settings of the reefs differ greatly. The Louisiana reefs are found localized on piercement salt-dome structures and as an extensive reef complex developed on a shallow-water shelf area in southeastern Louisiana. On Guam the flanks of an intermittently active volcano and a ridge of folded volcanics were the sites of reef growth. Six limestone facies are common to these two reef complexes: (1) reef-wall, (2) reef-breccia, (3) off-reef, (4) fore-reef de-trital, (5) fore-reef transitional, and (6) basinal. Material from Middle East reefs of Eocene and Oligocene age is presented for comparison. Reconstructions of depositional environments of the southern Louisiana and Guam reefs are based on stratigraphic, structural, and facies analyses. Present-day counterparts of the Louisiana fossil reefs are submarine topographic prominences on the Continental Shelf off Louisiana and Texas; the Guam fossil reefs are considered analogous to the reef around Borabora in the Society Islands. The authors conclude that Tertiary reefs contain diagnostic limestone facies in predictable spatial relationships and that the nature of the substratum and the local geologic settings do not appear to be controlling factors, provided that ecological conditions are favorable.

Tertiary reef limestones from southern Louisiana and Guam

Tertiary reef limestones from southern Louisiana and Guam

Note on Mississippian and Permian Reef Suites

Previous articleNext article No AccessGeological NotesNote on Mississippian and Permian Reef SuitesJohn W. WellsJohn W. Wells Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Geology Volume 60, Number 1Jan., 1952 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/625933 Views: 1Total views on this site Citations: 4Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:E. Sherbon Hills Depositional textures and structures, (Jan 1972): 6–48.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5843-2_2C. J. STUBBLEFIELD Sessile marine organisms and their significance in pre-Mesozoic strata. (Anniversary Address, 1960), Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society 116, no.1-41-4 (Apr 2022): 219–238.https://doi.org/10.1144/gsjgs.116.1.0219 McLain J. Forman , and Seymour O. Schlanger Tertiary Reef and Associated Limestone Facies from Louisiana and Guam, The Journal of Geology 65, no.66 (Sep 2015): 611–627.https://doi.org/10.1086/626467 W. W. Black Mississippian Reef Environments, Northern England, The Journal of Geology 63, no.22 (Sep 2015): 192–193.https://doi.org/10.1086/626244

Cretaceous and Tertiary Reef Formations and Associated Sediments in Middle East

This paper makes no contribution to general theories of reef-formation or to detailed studies of ecology. It attempts to summarize provisionally various observations, from scattered outcrops and wells, on the stratigraphic relationships of some reefs in the Middle East. The principal types are fringing-reefs, barrier-reefs, shoal-reefs, reef-knolls, and bank-reefs, the last term being used to indicate reef-complexes formed over submerged highs, generally of tectonic origin. It is shown that, under ideal conditions, the back-reef, reef, and fore-reef (basinward) facies-zones of a can be differentiated by petrographic and micropaleontologic criteria recognizable in thin sections, even of well cuttings; and that by this means it is commonly possible to infer the position and history of a reef from a series of local observations. The term reef-complex is applied to the aggregate of reef limestones and the calcareous rocks genetically (?) associated with them. The zone of interdigitation between a and the basinward sediments is considered to be particularly favorable for the generation, migration, and accumulation of oil, subject to certain conditioning factors such as the relative development of primary and secondary porosity; or of primary or secondary lime cementation in fore-reef limestones which, if porous, may act as carrier beds and reservoirs. It is shown that the reefs grew in certain sub-littoral zones and on some submerged highs of epeiric seas covering the Arabian foreland, in which deposition of the globigerinal chalk-marl facies predominated.

An integration of coral-reef hypotheses

"The various coral reef theories, the origin of basements, and the fallacies of some of the theories are discussed. The effects of the fluctuating Pleistocene sea levels on coral reef development are stressed, but it is pointed out that Pleistocene reefs commonly are superimposed on older reefs. It is believed that the Tertiary reefs of sialic islands formed on rising foundations, and that those of simatic islands formed on subsiding foundations. . . . It is concluded that the merits of various leading hypotheses vary according to the geologic age of the reef as well as to the location of the reef9s foundation on the earth9s crust relative to regions of uplift and subsidence."