SEDIMENTARY BASINS

TAMPUS, ROBERT MICHAEL

GEO132/A1

WHAT IS A SEDIMENTARY BASIN?

A low area in the earths crust, of tectonic
origin, in which sediments accumulate

Ranges in size from as small as hundreds of

meters to large parts of ocean basins
Regions of prolonged subsidence of the
Earths surface

WHAT IS A SEDIMENTARY BASIN?

Doesnt have to be a place on the Earths
surface with strictly basinal shape, with
closed contours
Tectonics is needed to make sedimentary
basins, but the record of the basin itself is
sedimentary.

HOW BASINS ARE MADE

LOCAL SCALE
Fault movements can create relief of hundreds
to thousands of meters, resulting in small but
often deep basins (intermontane basins)
Steps along strike-slip faults produces basins
(pull-apart basins)

REGIONAL SCALE
Thermal
Flexural

I N T E R M O N TA N E B AS I N S
Fault movements can create relief of hundreds to thousands of meters,
resulting in small but often deep basins

PULL-APART BASINS
Steps along strike-slip faults produces basins

Source: http://aapgbull.geoscienceworld.org/content/86/1/1/F6.large.jpg

HOW ARE BASINS MADE?

REGIONAL: THERMAL

HOW ARE BASINS MADE?

REGIONAL: FLEXURAL

Park a large load on some area of the lithosphere

subsidence by isostatic adjustment due to the new
load
But because the lithosphere has considerable flexural
rigidity, adjacent lithosphere is bowed down also.
Region between the high-standing load and the
lithosphere in the far field is thus depressed to form a
basin.

TECTONICS AND SEDIMENTATION

Tectonics is the most important control on sedimentation
Effects of tectonics on sedimentation:
nature of sediment
rate of sediment supply
rate of deposition
depositional environment
nature of source rocks
nature of vertical successions

Best way of telling paleotectonics is by the

sedimentary record in sedimentary basins

CLASSIFICATION OF
SEDIMENTARY BASINS
NATURE OF FILL

GEOMETRY

PALEOGEOGRAPHY

MORE GENETIC

TECTONIC
SETTING

MORE DESCRIPTIVE

CRATONS
Kraton Greek word for shield
the stable center of a continent
Characterized by thin sedimentary strata
that unconformably overlie basement rock
Limited vertical movement in the craton has
formed shallow basins and arches

CRATONIC BASIN
Typically shallow and bowl-shaped with the
units thickening gradually toward the center
Sedimentary record consists of
unconformity-bounded packages (called
sequences) that represent intervals of major
transgression across the entire craton.
Has a thin and discontinuous fill.

I N T RAC RATO N I C B AS I N
Location and tectonic setting
In anorogenic areas on cratons
Tectonic & sedimentary processes
No apparent connection with plate tectonics
reflect very slow thermal subsidence after a
heating event under the continental lithosphere
There are fewer and smaller diastems (a brief
interruption in sedimentation, with little or no
erosion before sedimentation resumes)

I N T RAC RATO N I C B AS I N

Size & Shape:

rounded, equidimensional, hundreds of km
across.
Sediment fill:
shallow-water cratonal sediments (carbonates,
shales, sandstones)

AULACOGENS
Location and tectonic setting
extending from the margins toward the
interiors of cratons

Tectonic and sedimentary processes

Represent the 3rd failed arm of a three-armed
rift, two of whose arms continue to open and
form an ocean basin
End at the passive continental margin (in modern
settings)
End at an orogenic belt (ancient settings)

AULACOGENS
Size, shape: long, narrow, linear; tens of km wide,
hundreds of km long
Sediment fill: coarse to fine siliciclastics, mostly
coarse minor carbonates, mostly nonmarine, some
marine

RIFT BASINS
Location and tectonic setting: within
continental lithosphere on cratons
Tectonic and sedimentary processes:
lithospheric extension on a craton causes major
rifts
rifts continue to open and forms ocean basins
floored by oceanic crust
some rifts fail to open fully into ocean basins floored
by thinned continental crust

RIFT BASINS
Size & Shape
Long, narrow, linear; tens of kilometers
wide, up to a few thousand kilometers
long
Sediment fill
Coarse to fine siliciclastics, usually
nonmarine; often lacustrine sediments;
interbedded basalts

OCEAN RIFT BASINS

location and tectonic setting: In a

narrow and newly opening ocean

OCEAN RIFT BASINS

Tectonic and sedimentary processes:
transitional between intracontinental rift basins and passivemargin basins
basins have opened wide enough to begin to be floored with
oceanic crust but are still so narrow
environment is either nonmarine or marine due to
restricted circulation
Size & Shape
long, narrow; straight or piecewise straight; tens to a few
hundreds of km wide, up to a few thousand km long
Sediment fill
mafic volcanics, lacustrine deposits, evaporites,
nonmarinesiliciclastics

GEOSYNCLINES
large trough-like or basin-like downwarping
of the crust in which thick sedimentary and
volcanic rocks accumulated
resulted from lateral compression
MIOGEOCLINE
-the prograding
wedge of mostly
shallow-water
sediment at a
continental margin

GEOSYNCLINES
MIOGEOSYNCLINE
near geosyncline
sequence of shallow marine sandstones and
limestones that tapered gradually into the
craton

FORMATION
OF

FOLD
MOUNTAINS

GEOSYNCLINES
EUGEOSYNCLINE
true geosyncline
Away from the center of the craton
Composed of deep marine shales, sandstones,
volcanic rocks and chert, also submarine volcanic
sand volcaniclastic debris
Subjected to intense compression and tectonic
deformation

GEOSYNCLINES
FLYSCH
Sequence of deep marine shales, graywackes,
turbidites, cherts that filled the eugeosyncline
Synorogenic - deposited at the same time as
the mountain building

GEOSYNCLINES
MOLASSE
sequence of fluvial and lacustrine
sandstones, redbeds and shales
post orogenic deposit

KAYS CLASSIFICATION OF
TECTONIC ELEMENTS
ORTHOGEOSYNCLINES
linear, deeply subsiding, shallow to
deep water; located between cratons
Eugeosynclines
actively subsiding, with associated
volcanics
Miogeosynclines
less active, no volcanics

KAYS CLASSIFICATION OF
TECTONIC ELEMENTS
PARAGEOSYNCLINES
commonly ovate, less actively subsiding, shorter lived than
orthogeosynclines; located within craton or adjacent to craton
Exogeosynclines
tongue-like extension from orthogeosyncline, detritus
mainly from orthogeosyncline
Autogeosynclines
isolated depositional areas within craton, detritus from
distant cratonic sources
Zeugogeosynclines
subsiding areas adjacent to complementary uplifts in
craton, detritus mainly from lifts

PLATE TECTONICS
allowed basins to be classified according
to a unifying geodynamic theory
The relative motion produces
deformation concentrated along plate
margins
Divergent Margins
Convergent Margins
Transform Margins

DIVERGENT MARGIN
Formed when two plates diverge
Characterized by extensional features,
especially seafloor spreading, extensional
grabens and normal faulting

PASSIVE MARGIN BASIN

Location and tectonic setting: Along passive
continental margins
Tectonic and sedimentary processes:
As ocean basins open by spreading, the zone of
heating and extensional thinning of continental
crust slowly cools.
Sediments accumulates at the transition from
continental crust to oceanic crust

PASSIVE MARGIN BASIN

Size and shape: straight to piecewise
straight, with irregularity; few hundred kms
wide, thousands kms long
Sediment fill: Overlying and overlapping
shallow-marine siliciclastics and carbonates pass
gradually into deeper marine fine sediments of the
continental slope

CONVERGENT MARGIN
When two plates converge or move toward each other
Characterized by compressional tectonics

CONVERGENT MARGIN
CONTINENTAL-CONTINENTAL
neither can be completely subducted, become uplifted and
deformed

Suture Belt: area of erosion, sheds coarse clastic debris

and fluvial deposits

REMNANT BASINS
Location and tectonic setting: within suture zones
formed by continentcontinent collision
Tectonic and sedimentary processes:
When continentcontinent collision, eventually
comes to pass, certain salients of continental crust
encounter the subduction zone before reentrants.
Further subduction and suturing, creates isolated
basins still floored by residual oceanic crust.
Size, shape: tens to hundreds km, irregular shape
Sediment fill: deep-marine sediment-gravity-flow
deposits

PERIPHERAL FORELAND BASINS

Peripheral foreland Basins
formed after continentcontinent collisions
by loading of the continental crust of the
subducted plate by development of thrust
sheets in the continental crust subducted
plate directed back away from the
subduction zone
Size, shape: tens to hundreds km, arcuate
Sediment fill: classic
molasse facies, thick
nonmarine
conglomerates, coarse
fluvial siliciclastics,
mainly as alluvial fans

CONVERGENT MARGIN
OCEANIC-OCEANIC
Either can be subducted beneath the other
forming the island arc complex on the overriding
plate.
Products of submarine volcanism (pillow lavas)
and submarine sedimentation (turbidites,
graywackes, shales, pelagic oozes)

CONVERGENT MARGIN
OCEANIC-CONTINENTAL
oceanic subducts beneath continental crust
forming a continental-margin arc
Sediment fill: mostly immature alluvial and fluvial
sandstones and shales

CONVERGENT MARGIN
Trench
Depression formed where two plates meet
Fine abyssal muds, volcanic ash and coarse
siliciclastics and volcaniclastics

Accretionary Wedge
Form when pelagic sediments are scrapped off the
subducted plate onto the overriding plate and accumulate along
the arc

CONVERGENT MARGIN
Ophiolites - oceanic sediments and pieces of oceanic
crust (pillow lavas, sheeted dikes and layered gabbros)
Melange (French, mixture) a mass of chaotically
mixed, brecciated blocks in a highly sheared matrix
Olistostrome submarine landslide deposits

TRENCH-SLOPE BASINS
Location and tectonic setting: On the inner
(arcward) wall of subduction-zone trenches
Tectonic and sedimentary processes:
Formed as low areas, with closed
contours, between adjacent thrust
sheets in the growing accretionary wedge
Size, shape: Small (no larger than km) linear,
and elongated parallel to the trench.
Sediment fill: deep-marine silts and muds and
coarse siliciclastics

FORE-ARC BASINS
Location and tectonic setting: in subduction zones
Tectonic and sedimentary processes:
Formed between the relatively high outer arc
upraised by subduction and the inner volcanic arc
built by subduction magmatism
Size, shape: tens of km up to hundreds, commonly
arcuate
Sediment fill: nonmarine siliciclastic fluvial to deltaic
deposits, mainly sediment-gravity-flow deposits

RETRO-ARC FORELAND BASINS

Retro-arc foreland Basins
Formed on stable continental crust by loading of
thrust sheets moving toward the continental interior
Result of compression and crustal shortening in an
oceancontinent subduction zone
Size, shape: tens to hundreds km, arcuate
Sediment fill:
classic molasse facies,
thick nonmarine
conglomerates, coarse
fluvial siliciclastics

TRANSFORM PLATE MARGIN

Dominant motion:
Strike-slip
Seldom straight; they
curve and are
composed of parallel
shear zones
Example: San Andreas
fault zone

PULL-APART BASINS
Transtensional or Pull-apart Basins
steep, fault bounded walls and can drop
precipitously to great depths
Location and tectonic setting: along major strike-slip
faults
Processes:
Tension/Compression (Transtensile) - the sense of the
curvature and movement of the walls of the fault are pulled
apart from one another
Compression(Transpressive) - the sense of the curvature
and movement of the walls are pushed against one another
Size, shape: Rhomboidal, km to tens of km

TRANSFORM MARGIN BASINS

Transpressional Basins
Caused by compressional downwarping
Very deep and narrow and accumulate thick piles of
sediments

Sediment fill: filled by thick nonmarine to marine coarse to

fine clastics, often as alluvial fans passing into lake
deposits or into deposits of restricted marine environments.

SEDIMENTARY BASINS IN THE PHILIPPINES

The Philippines hosts 16
sedimentary basins that
occupy offshore and onshore
areas, wholly or in part.
Agusan-Davao Basin
Bicol Shelf
Cagayan Basin
Central Luzon Basin
Cotabato Basin
East Palawan
NW Palawan Basin
Ilocos Trough
Reed Bank Basin
Mindoro-Cuyo Basin
SE Luzon Basin
SW Palawan Basin
Sulu Sea Basin
Visayan Basin
West Luzon Basin
W-Masbate-Iloilo Basin

THE END
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