This book is a global review and collection of structural
cross-sections of fold and thrust belts from around the world.
Part One American and Tethyan Fold-Thrust Belts (Beiträge zur regionalen Geologie der Erde, Band 31, 2009) of the two-book publication presents a
survey of modern geology and geodynamics along convergent continental
margins with observations, theories, scientific models and conclusions
on tectonic style zonation.
This, Part Two is an inventory of these thick wedges of tectonic
compression, along the edges of orogenic mountain belts worldwide and
their shallow fringes, the fold-thrust belts. Their mobile nature has
created thermodynamic conditions and structural traps for some of the
world’s largest hydrocarbon accumulations, poorly understood until the
pioneering integration of reflection-seismic profiles by petroleum
explorers, like the author, which are rarely published. Graphic
restorations are balanced to pre-tectonic state, using concepts of
wedge dynamics and structural styles, together with thermal evolution
of internal fluids. New production from on-shore fold-thrust belts
will likely come from re-exploring earlier failed or abandoned
ventures, using new and improved technology.
Evolved from field sketches, photography and remote sensing by
satellite and aircraft, together with modern reflection-seismic
profiles and a significant amount of drilled oil wells, this book
presents data from about as many sites and cross sections, as a single
geologist can possibly visit in a lifetime, can get travel funded, can
understand and ultimately get published. It represents the results of
an over 50 year career of an extraordinary petroleum geologist,
professor and illustrator, with access to an unparalleled body of data
about global fold-thrust belts.
The book is of interest to all geologists, resources engineers,
technical consultants, and of course to the academic readership from
all fields of the geosciences. It is recommended to readers with the
two volumes together.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
top ↑
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Fold-thrust belts, structure cross-sections 1
1.2 Two companion books, acknowledgments 1
1.3 Fold-thrust-belt ventures: world map 2
1.4 Models, illustrations, inventories 2
1.5 Recording fold-thrust belt data 3
1.6 Snip restoration 5
1.7 Fold-thrust belt geology and formation fluids 6
1.8 Geoscience textbooks 8
1.9 Basin studies: deep and shallow 10
1.10 Fluid migration in sedimentary basins 11
1.11 The seismograph invented the fold-thrust belts 11
1.12 Pre-seismic interpretations: legal aspects 11
1.13 Private industry encounters state authorities 12
1.14 Land, lease terms, joint ventures 13
1.15 Organizing fold-thrust belt (FTB) exploration: ranking the tasks 13
1.16 Industry and global petroleum resources 13
1.17 New petroleum and gas fields in the on-shore FTB setting 14
2 Bigmap: North American Cordillera 15
2.1 Cordilleran model 15
2.2 Cordilleran segments and provinces 16
3 Great Basin and Nevada 17
3.1 Overview 17
3.2 Inventory data and order of presentation 18
3.3 Presented paper: thrust belt of Central Nevada 20
3.4 Data base and references 20
3.5 Rocks and fluids 21
3.6 Cordilleran setting and plate tectonics 23
3.7 Fronts and stages of the Cordilleran FTB 24
3.8 Basement highs 24
3.9 Thermal stratigraphy and extensional tectonics 24
3.10 Structural styles 25
3.11 Nevada: petroleum potential 25
3.12 Nevada: industry needs, COCORP data, and a large fold 26
3.13 Nevada, the Cordillera, and the legacy of Peter Misch 28
3.14 Nevada inventory 28
4 Montana or Northern Rockies 29
4.1 Overview 29
4.2 Montana Cordilleran topics 29
4.3 Regional geology 30
4.4 External zone, wedge thickness, bulk strain 30
4.5 Tectonic separation on the Lewis thrust in Canada 32
4.6 Where is the trailing edge of the foreland-basement top? 33
4.7 Detached folds in the Threeforks-Townsend loop 33
4.8 Detailed mapping in the Threeforks-Townsend loop 36
4.9 Stringers of tight folds embedded into the Beltian wedge 36
4.10 Biot-Skipp folds: a new and distinct tectonic style 37
4.11 Juxtaposing Cordilleran and hercynide Externide FTB 38
4.12 Fold styles in an internide area of the Cordillera 38
4.13 Montana and British Columbia: Purcell fold styles 39
4.14 Glacier-Missouri frontal belt: a thin disturbed belt? 39
4.15 Southern Montana overlap zone (C. J. Schmidt) 42
5 Canadian Rocky Mountains (CRM) 45
5.1 To the Geological Survey of Canada: Thank you 45
5.2 Overview and data 45
5.3 Petroleum reserves and petroleum industry 46
5.4 Geoscience literature 47
5.5 The Great Northward Decline 49
5.6 Location and Cordilleran geodynamics 49
5.7 Terrane docking and Cordilleran bulk strain 50
5.8 Stratigraphy: Pre-Cordilleran passive margins and Cordilleran fore deep 50
5.9 Allochthonous rock panel and thrust sheets 51
5.10 Inventory of structure cross-sections 53
5.11 Northern Rockies, their main ranges and their basement 53
5.12 Duplex structures are antiformal thrust stacks 53
5.13 Large folds, detached Biotian folds, box folds 53
5.14 Non-metamorphic kink folds 54
5.15 West edge of the CRM Allochthon: steep zone or backstay? 54
5.16 Tight, polyphase, or transpositional folds 54
5.17 Western CRM and Selkirks Mountains: fan-shaped, folded, and reimbricated
steep zone 54
5.18 Mesoscopic fabric data suggest retrocharriage 55
5.19 Vertical Style Zonation (VSZ) 56
5.20 Erosion during thrust stacking 56
5.21 Objections against the Vertical Style Zonation? 56
5.22 Polyphase and pre-thrust folds at thrust fronts 56
5.23 Complex thrust fronts: folds and back-limb thrusts 57
5.24 Source and shape of inventory data 57
5.25 Inventory: bulk strain and structural styles 57
5.26 CRM seen as a pre-seismic type locality 58
6 Alaska Brooks Range (ABR) 62
6.1 Overview 62
6.2 Global significance and literature 65
6.3 Inventory of cross-sections and Cordilleran model 67
6.4 Cordilleran tectonics 67
6.5 Two versions of the Dahlstromian style 67
6.6 Plate tectonics 67
6.7 Angayucham: world-class ophiolite 68
6.8 Dating Brooks-Range tectonics: slow understanding 70
6.9 Better methods confirm Brookian orogeny as early 70
6.10 ABR basement structure, envelope tectonics, foreland flexure 70
6.11 Quantifying uplift of a core zone and decay of its Bouguer Moho root 71
6.12 Doonerak fenster: focal point of Brooks Range 71
6.13 Doonerak fenster and Brooks Front Range: unclear details 72
6.14 Brooks Range and its orogeny: a definition 73
7 Alps of Europe 74
7.1 Diagnosis and problems 74
7.2 Crustal Alps: Four tectonic elements 74
7.3 Geological significance 74
7.4 Alps, a minor active collision orogen 76
7.5 Alpine stratigraphy 77
7.6 Basin shapes and crustal structure 79
7.7 Alpine "lid" or floater 79
7.8 Alps: more tectonics 84
8 Alpine petroleum geology "Où est le Pétrole?" 86
8.1 Overview 86
8.2 Alpine source rocks 86
8.3 Productive structures, prospective structures 87
8.4 Alpine wells dry and abandoned 87
8.5 Three Alpine landmarks/wildcats 87
8.6 Visco-elastic load flexure unifies Alpine tectonics 88
8.7 Map-view curvature of Sommaruga (Moho) contours 88
9 Alps of Europe-North and East 89
9.1 Geological setting 89
9.2 Post-seismic petroleum venture: no access to seismic data 89
9.3 Field-checked Alpine cross-sections 90
9.4 East-Alpine FTB: geological issues resolved and unresolved 90
9.5 Two Alpine geologists 90
9.6 North Alpine inventory (Germany, Austria): structural geology 91
9.7 Austrian inventory: never accomplished 91
10 Alps of Europe: south 92
10.1 Friuli - Lombardia inventories 92
10.2 South-Alpine consortial venture 1986-1994 92
10.3 South-Alpine inventories of seriated cross-sections 93
10.4 South-Alpine structural style: Lombardia, Veneto, Friuli, Istria 93
10.5 Southeast-Alpine seismicity 94
10.6 Lombardia: seismic data and tectonics 94
11 Alps of Europe: west 97
11.1 Setting of basins and mountains 97
11.2 People 97
11.3 West-Alpine projects and data 97
11.4 Annecy permit for Esso-Standard-EssoREP 97
11.5 SEAG-Anschutz venture in the Swiss Molasse basin 98
11.6 Trans-Alpine seismic control 98
11.7 West-Alpine foreland structure: flexure with bumps and hollows 98
11.8 West-Alpine main thrust: collisional changes in structure 99
11.9 West-Alpine basement massifs 99
11.10 Ductile polyphase layer at the basement top 99
11.11 Estimating the depth of the ductile remnants 99
12 Pyrenees 101
12.1 Overview 101
12.2 Present account and its data base 101
12.3 Pyrenees: a collision orogen without oceanic crust 102
12.4 Pre-Pyrenean plate setting 102
12.5 South flank: Salinar and more 103
12.6 North flank: Orogenic backstay within Atlantic passive margin 103
12.7 Tectonics of the Aquitaine basin 104
12.8 Circum-Pyrenean petroleum systems, reserves, strati graphy 105
12.9 Pyrenean exploration ventures (1961-1967) 105
12.10 Texas Union: successor venture (1997-1998) 105
13 Hellenides, Dinarides (Greece, Albania) 106
13.1 Notes by Constantinos Nikolaou and DHR 106
13.2 Tectonic overview 106
13.3 Albano-Hellenides: petroleum potential 107
13.4 Albano-Hellenides: regional geology 107
13.5 Facies zones and thrust panels 108
13.6 Top panel of thrust stack 109
13.7 Olonos-Pindos ophiolite 109
13.8 Pindos sediment series 109
13.9 Pelagonian unit 109
13.10 Ambelakia series 109
13.11 Mount Olympus Window (MOW) footwall series 110
13.12 External and prospective units 110
13.13 Hellenic trench and trench innerwall 110
13.14 Recent gas discoveries by Hellenic Petroleum Co (2010-2012) 113
14 Apennine of Italy 114
14.1 Overview 114
14.2 Plate tectonics 114
14.3 Literature 114
14.4 Apennine-related ventures 115
14.5 Apennine FTB: volcanism, Tyrrhenian, spreading, seismicity 115
15 Sahara Atlas - Algeria, Morocco, North Africa 116
15.1 Overview 116
15.2 Maghreb: plate tectonics and geological data 117
15.3 Benoud Petroleum Concession: Sahara Atlas, Algeria 118
15.4 ATLAS: digital plate model of the Maghrebian 121
15.5 Sahara Atlas: structure and choice of assumed style 122
15.6 Atlasian strike-slip tectonics? - Unlikely 122
15.7 Stratigraphy: Sahara Atlas 123
15.8 Atlasian salinar: halokinetic and orogenic structures 123
15.9 Post-salinar 125
15.10 Atlasian Mesozoic development 125
15.11 Atlasian halokinetic and orogenic structures 125
15.12 Summary: surface structure and shape of salt basin 126
16 Tethyan Maroc-Morocco, Betica 127
16.1 Overview 127
16.2 Tectonic units 127
16.3 Petroleum and a decade of visits 128
16.4 West part of Tethyan suture 128
16.5 Stacked Rif allochthon 128
16.6 Ketama unit: a steep zone and triple junction? - A rootless rotation
zone? 129
16.7 Alboran Sea, Rifean-Betic Loop: emerging mantle diapir 129
17 Pakistan: Muslimbagh, Makran, Sulaiman, Kohlu 131
17.1 Overview 131
17.2 Pakistan: geological data 132
17.3 Pakistan: work projects 1975-1990 132
17.4 Pakistan: data sources for present book 133
17.5 Chaman belt: structure and seismicity 133
17.6 Chaman stratigraphy 133
17.7 Chaman plate tectonics 134
17.8 Chaman strike-slip tectonics 135
17.9 Ophiolites in Pakistan, by DHR and Eldridge Moores 135
17.10 New study of Pakistan tectonics 136
17.11 Fold-thrust belt-data in Pakistan 140
17.12 Seismic data and Biot fold tectonics 141
17.13 Tight folds and Chaman strike slip 142
17.14 Pakistani ophiolites: two sutures or one single suture? 142
18 Himalaya: never got there 144
19 Serrania del Interior de Venezuela 145
19.1 Geography, people 145
19.2 Petroleum 146
19.3 Tectonics and basin geology 146
19.4 More regional tectonics: structural styles 146
19.5 Petroleum exploration by PDVSA: a digital past 147
19.6 Venezuelan projects: 2001 to 2005 148
19.7 Petroleum geology 148
19.8 Cordilleran model for Venezuela 149
19.9 Basin studies in Venezuela 152
19.10 Structural inventory: Serrania del Interior 152
19.11 Structural inventory: salinar-detached Biot folds 155
19.12 Structural inventory: Ensenada de Barcelona 155
19.13 Caribbean Borderland: Cordillera of global significance 158
20 Blanquilla trough: a Bidround Item 159
21 Colombia 160
21.1 Overview 160
21.2 Trench-Trench-Trench triple junction 161
22 Bolivia: Northern Subandean and Alto Beni 162
22.1 Overview 162
22.2 Bolivian petroleum 167
22.3 Northern Subandean petroleum concession 169
22.4 Andean setting and sub-Andean structure 169
22.5 Setting of steep-slab subduction 169
22.6 Stratigraphy: overlapping passive-margin prisms 170
22.7 Foredeep fill 170
22.8 Crustal-load deflection 171
22.9 Sub-Andean belt: regional and detailed structure 171
23 Magallanes: Chile, Argentina 172
23.1 Geography 172
23.2 Petroleum 174
23.3 People 174
23.4 Notes from ADCO (Abu Dhabi) seismic course 174
24 Marathon, Ouachitas, Appalachians (MOA) 179
24.1 Overview 179
24.2 Pangean plate tectonics: HMA fold-thrust belt 179
24.3 Pangean plate tectonics and Wegener's fit of continents 179
24.4 Greater Variscan or HMA belt: Geology 180
24.5 Petroleum geology and US energy industry 182
24.6 Books and ventures in the HMA system (1967-1992) 182
25 Alleghanian (late Paleozoic) FTB of the Southern Appalachians 183
25.1 Overview 183
25.2 Appalachian FTB: building pre-digital and pre-seismic cross-sections . 183
25.3 Folds 184
25.4 More fold data from Southern Appalachian FTB 185
25.5 Regional order of kinematic (cross-cutting) sequences 188
25.6 Applying a tectonic mechanism to the Appalachian FTB 188
25.7 Saltville and Pulaski thrust sheets: parts of a Mesonide unit 189
25.8 Externides: westward moving critically tapered wedge 189
25.9 Topographic slopes 189
26 Epilog: American and Tethyan fold-thrust belts 190
26.1 Personal aspects 190
26.2 Economic aspects 190
26.3 Futuristic aspects 190
26.4 Geological aspects 190
26.5 Extensional tectonics and gravity spreading 191
26.6 Chaos and collapsing mountain belts 191
26.7 Gravity-driven wedge of chaos 192
26.8 Last fly-by sketch 193
References 195
Index 203
