On Regional Distribution and Characterization of The Klippfisk Formation Limestone

• Main Author: Sohaib, Muhammad
• Other Authors: Mørk, Atle
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: NTNU 2016
• Subjects: Petroleum Geosciences; Petroleum Geology; Barents Sea; Bjørnøya; Norway; Nordkapp; Nordkapp Basin; Nordland; Northern Norway; Troms
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2386563

This study documents and discusses the detailed sedimentology of the Berriasian to Early Barremian Klippfisk Formation on the western Barents Sea, at Bjarmeland Platform, northern part of the Bjørnøya Basin, northeastern part of the Nordkapp Basin, Nordland VII and Troms III areas of the Northern Norway. The Klippfisk Formation is a condensed carbonate succession deposited on Barents Sea shelf. The formation mainly consists of limestone and marls, often glauconitic. Complete and fragmented shells of Buchia and Inoceramus are abundant in the Klippfisk formation. Rare echinoderms, brachiopods and belemnite are also present. The depositional environment of the Klippfisk Formation has been studied through facies analysis of the core data. Twelve facies has been identified in the formation. At the Nordland VII area, the calcareous siltstone interbedded with beds and nodules of limestone represent a deep shelf depositional environment that was deposited over a long time with low clastic sediments influx. A shelf slope setting is interpreted at the Bjørnøya Basin, where platform is drowned and graded into slope of the shelf. The glauconitic sandstone is intermixed within the dolomitized limestone. The dolomite is followed by highly fossiliferous wackstone and packstone. The fossils identified are complete and fragmented bivalves of Buchia and Inoceramus, foraminifera and subordinate echinoderms. The lowermost limestone of the Klippfisk Formation on the Bjarmeland Platform is mud supported that graded into micritic limestone and fossiliferous packstone. The micrite has algal origin and represent an oxic shallow marine shelf. The regional trend of the Klippfisk Formation has a progradation from deep shelf to shallow marine environment across the Barents Sea shelf from the southeast to the northwest.