Stratigraphic and Tectonic framework of the US Chukchi Shelf: Insights from 9-km long-offset ARCTICSPAN 2-D seismic data

• Main Authors: Menno G. Dinkelman, Naresh Kumar, James Helwig, Pete Emmet
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chukchi Sea; Chukchi Shelf; Chukchi; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.605.7115; http://www.iongeo.com/content/released/dinkelman_2007-gussow-abstract-chukchi_22jun.pdf

This abstract on the SPAN data in US Chukchi Shelf is the companion abstract to Dinkelman and others (2007) presentation on the Beaufort-Mackenzie region given at this conference. In 2006, GX Technology acquired 3,132 km of 2-D seismic data in the US part of Chukchi Sea offshore northwest Alaska. The acquisition was designed to image down to the base of the crust with a 9-km long cable and 18-second recording. Data aquisition was carried out in open water outside the environmentally sensitive coastal exclusive zones to as far north and west as sea and ice conditions allowed. The objective of the SPAN programs and the processing paramenters have been described in the companion abstract. To the best of our knowledge, it is the only dataset of its kind available in the area. We have identified and tied to the well data the sequences recognized by the Mineral Management Service (2006), i.e., the Brookian (Upper Cretaceous-Tertiary), Beaufortian (Lower Cretaceous), and Ellesmerian (Upper Devonian – Jurassic). In addition, the top of the Franklinian sequence (generally considered to be the top of acoustic basement) has also been mapped. However, we have mapped an area covering a large part of the basin where well-imaged internal reflectors displaying compressional and extensional structures are visible underneath this “basement”. As suggested by