A disequilibrium compaction model constrained by seismic data and application to overpressure generation in The Eastern Black Sea Basin

Locating and quantifying overpressures are essential to understand basin evolution and hydrocarbon migration in deep basins and thickly sedimented continental margins. Overpressures influence sediment cohesion and hence fault slip in seismically active areas or failure on steep slopes, and may drive catastrophic fluid expulsion. They also represent a significant drilling hazard. Here, we present a method to calculate the pore pressure due to disequilibrium compaction. Our method provides an estimate of the compaction factor, surface porosity and sedimentation rate of each layer in a sediment column using a decompaction model and the constraints imposed by seismic data and geological observations. For a range of surface porosities, an ad hoc iterative equation determines the compaction factor that gives a calculated layer thickness that matches the observed thickness within a tolerance. The surface porosity and compaction factor are then used to obtain a density profile and a corresponding estimate of P‐wave velocity (V_p). The selected parameters are those that give a good match with both the observed and calculated layer thicknesses and V_p profiles. We apply our method to the centre of the Eastern Black Sea Basin (EBSB), where overpressures have been linked to a low‐velocity zone (LVZ) at ca. 5500–8500 m depth. These overpressures were generated by the relatively high sedimentation rate of ca. 0.28 m ka^?1 of the low permeability organic‐rich Maikop formation at 33.9–20.5 Ma and an even higher sedimentation rate of ca. 0.85 m ka^?1 at 13–11 Ma. We estimate a maximum pore pressure of ca. 138 MPa at ca. 8285 m depth, associated with a ratio of overpressure to vertical effective stress in hydrostatic conditions () of ca. 0.7. These values are lower than those presented in a previous study for the same area.     

Gravity anomalies and flexure of the lithosphere at Ascension Island

Ascension Island, in the northern South Atlantic, forms the summit of a volcanic edifice 60 km in diameter which places a substantial load on the underlying young oceanic lithosphere. An analysis of a combined data set of recent and historical surface-gravity and bathymetry measurements on and around the island suggests that the lithosphere responds to this load by flexure equivalent to that of an elastic plate only ≈ 3 km thick, and that the mean density of the volcanic edifice is ≈ 2500 kg m^-3. A steep gravity gradient across the island cannot be explained by a simple flexural model and must be attributed to lateral density variations within the volcano itself. The effective elastic thickness is considerably less than the expected ≈ 12 km mechanical thickness of the ≈ 6 Ma lithosphere loaded by the volcano, and less even than zero-age elastic thicknesses commonly observed at slow-spreading ridges with axial rift valleys. The unusually small elastic thickness may be attributed to the combined effects of the high curvature beneath the island, which produces bending stresses that are limited by the yield stress envelope, localized heating of the lithosphere during emplacement of the island, and crustal thickening. When these factors are taken into account, the observed flexure is consistent with rheological models based on experimental rock mechanics.     

Dalrymple Trough: An active oblique-slip ocean–continent boundary in the northwest Indian Ocean

The Dalrymple Trough marks part of the transform plate boundary between India and Arabia in the northern Arabian Sea. Oblique extension is presently active across this portion of the boundary at a rate of a few millimetres per year, and seismic reflection profiles across the trough confirm that it is an extensional structure. We present new swath bathymetric and wide-angle seismic data from the trough. The bathymetric data show that the trough is bounded by a single, steep, 3-km-high scarp to the southeast and a series of smaller, en-echelon scarps to the northwest. Wide-angle seismic data show that a typical oceanic crustal velocity structure is present to the northwest, with a crustal thickness of ~ 6 km. There is an abrupt change in crustal thickness and velocity structure at the northwestern edge of the trough, and the trough itself is underlain by 12-km-thick crust interpreted as thinned continental crust. Therefore we infer that Dalrymple Trough is an unusual obliquely extending plate boundary at which continental crust and oceanic crust are juxtaposed. The extensional deformation is focused on a single major fault in the continental lithosphere, but distributed over a region ~ 60 km wide in the oceanic lithosphere.     

Age of Seychelles–India break-up

Many continental flood basalt provinces are spatially and temporally linked with continental break-up. Establishing the relative timing of the two events is a key step in determining their causal relationship. Here we investigate the example of the Deccan Traps and the separation of India and the Seychelles. Whilst there has been a growing consensus as to the age of the main phase of the Deccan emplacement (65.5 ± 1 Ma, chron 29r), the age of the rifting has remained unclear. We resolve this issue through detailed seafloor magnetic anomaly modeling (supported by wide-angle and reflection seismic results) of the north Seychelles and conjugate Laxmi Ridge/Gop Rift margins, and geochemistry and ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar geochronology of rocks from the north Seychelles margin. We show that syn-rift volcanics offshore the Seychelles Islands in the form of seaward-dipping reflectors were most likely erupted during chron 28n, and the first organized seafloor spreading at the Carlsberg Ridge also initiated during this chron at 63.4 Ma. The severing of the Seychelles occurred by a south-eastward ridge propagation that was completed by the start of chron 27n (~ 62 Ma). A brief, pre-28r phase of seafloor spreading occurred in the Gop Rift, possibly as early as 31r–32n (~ 71 Ma). Initial extension at the margin therefore preceded or was contemporaneous with the Deccan emplacement, and separation of the Seychelles was achieved less than 3.5 Ma afterwards. This is the shortest time interval between flood basalt emplacement and break-up yet reported for any continental flood basalt-rifted margin pair. A contributing factor to the apparently short interval in the Deccan case may be that rifting occurred by a ridge jump into already thinned continental lithosphere. However, we conclude that external plate-boundary forces, rather than the impact of a mantle plume, were largely responsible for the rifting of the Seychelles from India.     

Cenozoic evolution of the eastern Black Sea: A test of depth-dependent stretching models

Subsidence analysis of the eastern Black Sea basin suggests that the stratigraphy of this deep, extensional basin can be explained by a predominantly pure-shear stretching history. A strain-rate inversion method that assumes pure-shear extension obtains good fits between observed and predicted stratigraphy. A relatively pure-shear strain distribution is also obtained when a strain-rate inversion algorithm is applied that allows extension to vary with depth without assuming its existence or form. The timing of opening of the eastern Black Sea, which occupied a back-arc position during the closure of the Tethys Ocean, has also been a subject of intense debate; competing theories called for basin opening during the Jurassic, Cretaceous or Paleocene/Eocene. Our work suggests that extension likely continued into the early Cenozoic, in agreement with stratigraphic relationships onshore and with estimates for the timing of arc magmatism. Further basin deepening also appears to have occurred in the last ～ 20 myr. This anomalous subsidence event is focused in the northern part of the basin and reaches its peak at ～ 15–10 Ma. We suggest that this comparatively localized shortening is associated with the northward movement of the Arabian plate. We also explore the effects of paleowater depth and elastic thickness on the results. These parameters are controversial, particularly for deep-water basins and margins, but their estimation is a necessary step in any analysis of the tectonic subsidence record stored in stratigraphy.