Morphometric analysis of sediment conduits on a bathymetric high: Implications for palaeoenvironment and hydrocarbon prospectivity

• Published in: Basin Research
• Main Authors: Harishidayat, Dicky, Omosanya, Kamaldeen Olakunle, Johansen, Ståle Emil, Eruteya, Ovie, Niyazi, Yakufu
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/550; Hydrocarbon seismic canyon Norway; Barents Sea; Middle Point; Norway
• Online Access: https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:127897

Canyons and other sediment conduits are important components of the deep-waterenvironment and are the main pathways for sediment transport from the shelf tothe basin floor. Using 3-D and 2-D seismic reflection data, seismic facies and sta-tistical morphometric analyses, this study showed the architectural evolution offive canyons, two slide scars and four gullies on the southern part of the LoppaHigh, Barents Sea. Morphometric parameters such as thalweg depth (lowest pointon a conduit's base), wall depth (middle point), height, width and base width, sin-uosity, thalweg gradient, aspect ratio (width/height) and cross-sectional area of theconduits were measured at intervals of 250-m perpendicular to the conduits'path-ways. Our results show that the canyons and slide scars in the study area widendown slope, whereas the gullies are narrow and short with uniform widths. Thesediment conduits in the study area evolved in three stages. The first stage is cor-related with a time when erosion and bypass were dominant in the conduits, andsediment transferred to the basin in the south. The second stage occurred whenbasin subsidence was prevalent, and a widespread fine-grained sequence wasdeposited as a drape blanketing the canyons and other conduits. A final stageoccurred when uplift and glacial erosion configured the entire southern LoppaHigh into an area of denudation. Our work demonstrates that the morphometricparameters of the canyons, slide scars and gullies generally have increasing lineartrends with down-slope distance, irrespective of their geometries. The morphomet-ric analysis of the sediment conduits in the study area has wider applications forunderstanding depositional processes, reservoir distribution and petroleumprospectivity in frontier basins.