Source to sink: Sediment volume partitioning in time and space - Annual report VISTA 2009

Annual report VISTA 2009

Project title: Source to sink: Sediment volume partitioning in time and space
Project director: William Helland-Hansen, Department of Earth Science, UiB
Post-doc scholar: Tor Oftedal Sømme
Project duration: 2009-05-01 to 2009-08-12
Division head: Lasse Amundsen
Project number: 6256

Objective
Ancient outcrop and subsurface sedimentary units will always be associated with many uncertainties in terms of morphology and lateral extent as the most proximal part of the sedimentary transport system rarely is preserved in the stratigraphic record, and as the remaining part of the system is only partly preserved and typically lacks good 3D coverage. Modern field analogue studies are thus important for the understanding of ancient source-to sink sedimentary system, as they may provide 3D control on sediment partitioning within relatively short time frames, allowing better constraints on the forcing factors controlling sediment dispersal. The objective for this work is to combine such modern analogues together with forward stratigraphic modelling get a better understanding on sediment transport and dispersal in source-to-sink systems.

Status
The project has been running for 9 months, and at this stage we have started an analogue comparison study of sub-modern rift basins from different parts of the world to gather data on rift characteristics and morphology, and sediment dispersal in shallow- and deep-marine depositional environments. We are currently starting to gather data from the Mesozoic North Sea rift which will be compared to the modern rift data. Modelling of stratigraphic architecture over different time-frames has also been initiated in the last month. This modelling work is expected to increase in the months to come.