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DYNAMIC STRATIGRAPHY WORKGROUP |
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Foreland basin field study: Western Interior Seaway - Williams Fork Clastic Wedge Interaction of tectonics and sedimentation
People: Julio Leva López, Ronald J. Steel
Research question(s): How do all the pieces of the Williams Fork Clastic Wedge fit together from fluvial to shelf? What are the dominant processes in the deltaic systems inside the clastic wedge? Where do the sediments get trapped in this system during the progradation pulses? And during the transgressive periods? What is the behavior of the fluvial system? And how does it respond to the Laramide orogeny? What is the main driver for the extraordinary progradation of this clastic wedge? And what are the processes that control its internal architecture?
Summary of work: A combination of outcrop and well-log data will allow at least two regional source-to-sink transects to be set up, slightly oblique to depositional trend. These well-log and outcrop transets will allow a study of the external geometry and internal architecture of the 3rd-order clastic wedge, the time/space relations between the different stratigraphic units, as well as the sediment partitioning inside the system in a source to sink perspective. The outcrop study will provide a more detailed documentation of the depositional systems that are contained in the clastic wedge. Matching these source-to-sink transects to eustatic curves, subsidence curves and autostratigraphic models will give insight into the drivers of the general geometry of the clastic wedge and its internal architecture.
Publications and presentations:
Conference/meeting presentations: Leva López, J and Steel, R.J., 2010, Source-to-Sink Correlation and Facies Architecture of the late Campanian Williams Fork Clastic Wedge. AAPG 2011 Annual Convention and Exhibition, Houston.
Leva López, J., and Steel, R.J., 2010, The Campanian Twenty-Mile Sandstone Clastic Wedge: Source-to-sink facies architecture. In: 18th International Sedimentological Congress, Mendoza, Argentina.
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