Basin Research - Volume 27, Issue 6, 2015

Sediment supply rate and accommodation regime represent primary controls on the depositional architecture of basin margin successions, but their interaction is commonly inferred from 2D dip profiles and/or with limited constraints on sedimentary facies. In this study, three parallel (>40 km long) 2D depositional oblique‐dip profiles from outcrops of the lower Waterford Formation (Karoo Basin, South Africa) have been correlated. This data set provides a rare opportunity to assess the lateral variability in the sedimentary process record of the shelf‐to‐slope transition for eight successive clinothems over a 900 km² area. The three profiles show similar shelf‐edge rollover trajectories, but this belies significant along‐margin variability in sedimentary processes and down‐dip sediment supply. The depositional architecture of three successive clinothems (WfC 3, 4 and 5) also show along‐shelf physiographic differences. The reconstructed shelf‐edge rollover position is not straight, and a westward curve to the north coincides with an area of greater sand supply to the slope beyond a shelf dominated by wave and storm processes. All the clinothems thicken northwards, indicating an along‐margin long‐term increase in accommodation that was maintained through multiple shoreline transits across the shelf. The origin of the differential subsidence cannot be discriminated confidently between tectonic or compaction processes. The interplay of basin margin physiography, differential subsidence rate and process regime resulted in significant across‐strike variability in the style and timing of sediment dispersal patterns beyond the shelf‐edge rollover. This study highlights the challenge for accurate prediction of the sediment partitioning across the shelf‐edge rollover in subsurface studies.

Sedimentary basins are affected by a large number of forcing factors during their evolution and as a result, it is often difficult to isolate the contribution of each individual factor. Many forcing factors are temporally and spatially heterogeneous; they do not affect all parts of the basin in the same way and at the same time. We show that this heterogeneity can be used to identify the contributions of forcing factors by comparing various parts of a basin. This approach is applied to the Pannonian Basin, a back‐arc basin located in Central Europe. In the basin, the amounts of crustal extension, tectonic inversion and sediment influx varied in space and time, while the connection with the marine realm fluctuated. In this study we focus on two currently unresolved issues: firstly, we establish by what processes and from what directions the basin was filled in, and secondly, we investigate whether the basin was affected by the Messinian Salinity Crisis. The analysis of seismic and well data in the previously less studied SE part of the basin demonstrate that progradation occurred from the southern and eastern basin margins, complementing the previously described progradation from the northwestern and northern basin margins. Elsewhere in the basin, an unconformity observed in the progradational basin infill is intensely debated to be the result of either the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC) or basin inversion. Having the advantage of minor Pliocene–Quaternary amounts of inversion in the studied part of the basin we show that no regional unconformity is present in the studied stratigraphic interval, which implies that the effects of the MSC on the basin were minor. We infer that being aware of the fact that the effects of relative sea/lake‐level fluctuations may vary significantly across a basin is critical for understanding the evolution of semi‐enclosed basins.

The main source of siliciclastic sediment in the Barbados accretionary prism is off‐scraped quartzose to feldspatho‐litho‐quartzose metasedimentaclastic turbidites, ultimately supplied from South America chiefly via the Orinoco fluvio‐deltaic system. Modern sand on Barbados island is either quartzose with depleted heavy‐mineral suites recycled from Cenozoic turbidites and including epidote, zircon, tourmaline, andalusite, garnet, staurolite and chloritoid, or calcareous and derived from Pleistocene coral reefs. The ubiquitous occurrence of clinopyroxene and hypersthene, associated with green‐brown kaersutitic hornblende in the north or olivine in the south, points to reworking of ash‐fall tephra erupted from andesitic (St Lucia) and basaltic (St Vincent) volcanic centres in the Lesser Antilles arc. Modern sediments on Barbados island and those shed by larger accretionary prisms such as the Indo‐Burman Ranges and Andaman‐Nicobar Ridge define the distinctive mineralogical signature of Subduction Complex Provenance, which is invariably composite. Detritus recycled from accreted turbidites and oceanic mudrocks is mixed in various proportions with detritus from the adjacent volcanic arc or carbonate reefs widely developed at tropical latitudes. Ophiolitic detritus, locally prominent on the Andaman Islands, is absent on Barbados, where the prism formed above a westward subduction zone with a shallow décollement plane. The four‐dimensional complexities inherent with multicyclic sediment dispersal along and across convergent plate boundaries require quantitative provenance analysis as a basic tool in paleogeographic reconstructions. Such analysis provides the link between faraway factories of detritus and depositional sinks, as well as clues on subduction geometry and the nature of associated growing orogenic belts, and even information on climate, atmospheric circulation and weathering intensity in source regions.

We have constrained the time‐space migration of the Zagros foredeep basin by performing Sr isotope stratigraphy on 31 samples of marine macrofossils from Neogene sediments now exposed in the Zagros mountain belt in southwest Iran. Our results show that these deposits (represented mainly by the Mishan Formation) are strongly diachronous, with ages ranging between 17.2 ± 0.2 and 1.1 ± 0.1 Ma. These deposits are older in the west (Dezful region) and become progressively younger towards the south and the south‐east (Fars region). Our results show that the marine foredeep was replaced by a fluvial sedimentary environment between ca. 14 and 12 Ma in the western sector, while this occurred between ca. 8 and 1 Ma in the eastern sector, becoming younger towards the south. These results enable us to show that the foreland basin migrated perpendicular to the orogen at rates of between 17.5 and 50 mm year⁻¹ throughout the Neogene, exceeding migration rates in the Alps, Pyrenees, Apennines and Himalayan foreland basins. The sporadically elevated rates in the Zagros appear to be related to times when major widely spaced pre‐existing basement faults became reactivated. Finally, our results, when combined with published data, have enabled us to establish a new chronostratigraphic diagram for the Neogene portion of the Zagros foreland basin. Our study highlights that foreland basins are extremely dynamic settings where depocentres and palaeoenvironments may change rapidly in both time and space in relation to migrating deformation.