INTRODUCTION TO SEDIMENTARY BASINS

By
Tausif Ahmad
INTRODUCTION
The official definition of a sedimentary basin is: “a low area in the Earth’s crust, of
tectonic origin, in which sediments accumulate”.
Sedimentary basins range in size from as small as hundreds of meters to large parts
of ocean basins.
The essential element of the concept is tectonic creation of relief, to provide both a
source of sediment and a relatively low place for the deposition of that sediment.
Keep in mind that a sedimentary basin doesn’t have to be a place on the Earth’s
surface with strictly basinal shape, with closed contours, like a washbowl: great
masses of sediment can be deposited on a surface with a gentle and uniform slope.
But implicit in the concept of a sedimentary basin is the existence of prolonged
crustal subsidence, to make a place for a thick deposit of sediment that might well
have been deposited in an area without basinal geometry at the surface.
Tectonics is needed to make sedimentary basins, but the record of the basin itself is
sedimentary.
In the long run, eustatic changes in base level are cyclical
Do not produce permanent increases in accommodation for long-term sediment storage
How Basins are Classified?
Basin can be classified according to many priorities of the individual. 
A classification scheme should not just create "order from the chaos", but highlight
patterns that are useful for predicting stratigraphy, and faulting.
Dickinson's (1974) classification scheme is based on tectonic history:
(a) lithospheric substratum: oceanic versus continental
(b) proximity of the basin to a plate margin
(c) type of plate margin nearest the basin i.e., convergent, divergent, conservative
(similar to Bally and Snelson, 1980)

Other factors used are: hydrocarbon characteristics, types of sedimentary sequences

filling the basin, and the tectonics that modify the sediment infill
If on the other hand one is interested in WHERE they are to be found with respect to
PLATE TECTONIC boundaries we might also get a hint about the mechanism of
formation.  Fossil basins may no longer be in the plate tectonic setting in which they
were originally formed.
If one is interested in HOW Basins are formed then it is very
natural that we break up the basin types according to their
mechanism of formation. E.g.,
Plate Tectonics
Mechanical,
Thermal or
Thermal-mechanical.
TECTONICS AND SEDIMENTATION
Tectonics is the most important control on sedimentation; climate is a rather distant second. The
important effects of tectonics on sedimentation, direct or indirect, include the following:

 nature of sediment
rate of sediment supply
rate of deposition
depositional environment
nature of source rocks
nature of vertical succession

In fact, tectonics affects climate itself, by way of effects as broad as the distribution of oceans and
continents, and as local as rain shielding by local mountain ranges. And sedimentation itself affects
tectonics, although to a much lesser extent, mainly by increasing the lithospheric loading in the basin.
The other side of the coin is that by far the best way of telling paleotectonics is by the sedimentary
record in sedimentary basins. The disposition of sediment types, sediment thicknesses, and paleocurrents
in a basin gives evidence of the existence and location of elevated areas of the crust created by tectonism.
CLASSIFICATION OF SEDIMENTARY BASINS

A list of some of the important criteria that could be used, ranging from more
descriptive at the top of the list to more genetic at the bottom of the list:
Nature of fill more descriptive
Geometry
Paleogeography
Tectonic setting more genetic

Nowadays sedimentary basins are classified by tectonic (and, specifically, plate-

tectonic) setting. That’s fairly easy to do for modern basins, but it’s rather difficult to
do for ancient basins. (By modern basins I mean those still within their original
tectonic setting; by ancient basins I mean those now separated from their original
tectonic setting.)
The concept of plate tectonics serves a useful frame work for structural geological
analysis on all relevant scales.

The principal geological stress systems are ruled by processes in the deep earth like
mantle convection and lithosphere subduction.

The secondary effects of which are manifested at the base of the lithosphere and
along plate margins.

Based on these concepts, the basic dynamics of the lithosphere can be quantified.

which is a prerequisite for the evaluation and calculation of the state of stress at any
point which in turn helps to quantify the stress situation at the plate margins is a
prerequisite for understanding the state of stress in any basin system.
Fig. The major tectonic plates and their boundaries (from Nystuen in Ramberg et al. 2008).
PRINCIPAL STRESSES
Far-field or contemporary stresses
Originated at plate margins and can be subdivided into three basic plate margin
settings.
Constructive Boundaries(Tensional) where adjoining plates are moving away
from each other and new crust is formed by magmatic activity.
Destructive Boundaries(Compressional) where lithosphere is consumed by
subduction or obduction.
Conservative Boundaries(Strike-Slip) where plates are moving past each other
in a strike-slip sense and where lithosphere is neither created nor consumed.
Local Stress
The stress condition at any given point with in a basin
NOTE: The stress situation in a basin or a reservoir may be a sum of several far-
field stresses combined with a local stress, which may be related to burial,
erosion, geothermal gradients, topography, basement relief and structural
inhomogeneities in the substratum.
 Tectonic Stress in the Earth’s Lithosphere
Several other processes contribute to the generation of stresses e.g. residual
stress inherited from previous deformation.
Thermal Stress which is related to expansion of rocks during heating or
contraction during cooling.
Stress related to local gravitational gradients.
The reference stress refers to the stress inside the plate, devoid of plate tectonic
stresses

Total stress = reference stress + residual stress

+thermal stress + tectonic stress

Tectonic stress = contemporary stress + local stress

Anderson in his two influential works in 1934 and 1951, provided the
framework for all modern tectonic and structural geological analysis.
Which is

the vertical lithostatic stress (σv) as a reference:

σv = ρgz (where ρ is the specific weight, g is the constant of gravity
and z is the height of the rock column).

The three principal stress systems can be defined, each corresponding to a

regime of deformation.
σv > σH > σh; extension
σH > σv > σh; strike-slip
σH > σh > σv; contraction
where σH and σh are the maximum and minimum horizontal stresses,
respectively.
Principal stress configurations

(from Fossen and Gabrielsen 2005)

SEDIMENTARY BASINS
A sedimentary basin is an area or regions where sediments can be
deposited and preserved.
Evolution of most large basin are controlled by tectonic processes,
particularly plate boundaries.
Most basins are named after their plate tectonic setting. e.g.

I. Rift or Extensional Basin

II. Foreland and Fore-arc Basin
III. Pull-apart Basins
Basins Formation
The concept of Wilson Cycle is very important to understand the basin
formation.
The formation of extensional basins may be seen as the first stage of the
Wilson Cycle, which begins with thinning, stretching and rifting of the
continental crust followed by continental break-up and mid-oceanic
spreading.
The concept of the Wilson cycle predicts that this process sometimes
becomes reversed, causing closure of the ocean, collision between the
adjacent continental plates, and hence the construction of a mountain
chain along the zone of collision.
The junction between the continental plates defines the suture between
the two.
(from Nystuen in Ramberg et al. 2008)
Rift Basin
Rift basins consist of grabens or half-grabens.
Rifts may be non-marine(fluvial and lacustrine) or marine.
Clastic depositional systems may include axial rivers or submarine
dispersial and flanking(transverse) rivers or submarine fans.
Rift deposits may be classified as pre-rift, syn-rift and post rift
sediments.
Lacustrine deposits are common in rifts basin because of the
typical continental-interior setting of these basins.
Basin Development Stages
For modelling purposes and for the analysis of extensional basins with respect to petroleum exploration,
three stages of development can be distinguished.
I. The pre-rift stage
II. The active stretching stage or extension
III.The post-rift stage

After Gabrielsen (1986)

The pre-rift stage

characterised by gentle flexuring and fracturing of the lithosphere.

In some rifts we see the development of a gentle bulge, caused by mantle doming and
associated warming – and hence expansion – of the lithosphere.
a gentle subsidence, defining a broad, shallow basin is seen, caused by mild extension of
the cold (not-yet-heated) lithosphere.
the lithosphere is prone to develop steep fractures on a crustal or even lithospheric scale.
Sediment transport is mainly transverse to the basin axis, but quite homogeneous due to
lack of pronounced gradients in the basin.
a terrestrial depositional environment would be most common for the pre-rift stage
source rocks and cap rocks, which are mostly of marine depositional origin, may be
scarce
sand deposits are likely to be sheet-like and relatively thin, with few structural traps
developing at this stage
The active stretching stage
 extension, and hence also subsidence, accelerate.
 heat input increases due to upheaval of hot layers of the mantle lithosphere.
 The steep fractures generated in the pre-rift stage will not be able to accommodate the extension and a
new set of low-angle planar or listric faults will be activated.
 separating fault blocks that are detached from the lower crust by a subhorizontal zone of weakness.
Gliding on the system of detachments.
 the fault blocks and their internal beds will rotate away from the basin axis.
 From the view of the petroleum explorationist, the active stretching stage deserves particular attention
because of the variety of structural and stratigraphic traps that may develop.
 This stage is also characterised by a complex sediment distribution system that is likely to produce a
variety of lithofacies due to the increasing topographic relief associated with high fault activity.
 Sand that is eroded from the high-standing parts of the basin (e.g. Basin shoulders and crests of rotated
fault blocks) may be trapped in lows in various structural positions and these units are likely later to be
covered by transgressive marine sediment accumulations.
 The sediment transport system in the active stretching stage is likely to be dominated by complex
transverse and locally bidirectional fluvial systems.
The thermal subsidence stage
 Thermal contraction of the lithosphere dominates the basin subsidence pattern.
 The parts of the basin that have experienced the strongest extension will subside more than other parts.
 The rotation of strata upwards away from the basin axis becomes reversed so that strata begin to rotate downwards towards
the basin axis.
 The transverse sediment transport will persist during the thermal subsidence stage, while the basin floor becomes gradually
smoothed.
 An axial transport system may also still be active, but is likely to become less pronounced through this stage of development.
 The depositional environment is likely to be marine and the central part of the basin may attain great water depth (thousands
of metres).
 Stratigraphic hydrocarbon traps rather than structural ones are likely to be the most common.

After Gabrielsen et al. (1995)

Syn-rift to post-rift transition
A simple geometrical change of the outline of extensional basins will
accompany the transition from the syn- to the post-rift stage.
The margins of the relatively narrow, steep-walled rift, which traps
the syn-rift sediments, become overstepped at the syn- to post-rift
transition.
The beginning of the post-rift development as the stage by which the
syn-rift faults become inactive and subsidence becomes controlled
dominantly by thermal contraction and sediment loading.
The syn- to postrift transition coincides with a regional shift in tilt
from fault block rotation away from the graben axis during the syn-rift
stage to tilting directed towards the basin axis during the post-rift
development.
After Gabrielsen (1986)
 The Structural Influence on Reservoir and Source Rock Distribution in Extensional
Basins

Fig. Variations in trap types associated with the pre-rift (orange), syn-rift (yellow) and post-rift (green) stages. The trap types associated with the syn-rift/post-rift transition
are marked in red. See text for detailed explanation. From Gabrielsen et al. (1995).
Drainage systems associated with rotated fault block and associated fault scarps. Note that the fan systems associated with the fault
scarps may be discontinuous and that sand is also derived from the rotated hanging wall fault block. Modified from Nøttvedt,
Gabrielsen and Steel (1995).
PULL-APART BASINS
 Strike-slip basins have rapid subsidence which maintains sharp basin-margin relief.
 The supply of detrius and basin sedimentation rates are also expected to be very high.
 Most basins are only a few tens of kilometers across and are characterized by evidence of marked
local syndepositional relief.
 They have distinctive internal structures with predictable orientations.
 The strata are characterized by numerous local facies changes.
 Movements on individual faults may be local and spasmodic, so that sediments in adjacent may
have different Stratigraphy.
 There is ample evidence of syndepositional tectonism, including intraformational folds and local
unconformities.
 Basin-fill sediments may be offset from their source area.
 Sedimentation rates are rapid.
 There are no distinctive depositional environments because strike-slip faults occur in all possible
environmental settings.
A variety of structures, and hence a variety of hydrocarbon trap types, are likely to
develop along a strike-slip fault.
In the ideal case, where the fault trace is planar and the movements of the opposing
fault blocks are absolutely parallel, the trace would be one vertical plane.
There will be segments where material is squeezed up and out of the fault zone, and
cases where slivers of the footwall and hangingwall fall into the fault zone.
In both cases the faults are likely to have a steeply dipping root, creating diagnostic
geometries for strike-slip faults called (positive and negative) flower-structures.
Where distinct fault segments overlap, but are not in direct contact, zones with pull-
apart basins or turtle-back structures will occur.
Movements in shear-zones are in many cases not entirely parallel, so that a
contractional or extensional component adds to the shear. These situations are called
transpressional and transtensional, respectively.
Most common hydrocarbon traps in strike-slip systems. Types of structures are indicated in the figure.
Foreland Basins
Subsidence in the proximal parts of mountains or thrustbelts.
Uplifts in distal parts.
The shape of the basin has great influence on type of material or sediments
depositing into the basin.
The proximal steep parts coarse and very coarse material or sediments are
deposited.
Subsidence is greater than the infilling process.
In the middle part of the basin fine material(silt , clay and mud) accumulates.
The basin is asymmetric.
Most foreland basins are ultimately filled by thick non marine sediment wedges.
The transition from deep marine to shallow marine and non marine may record
with passage of the colliding wedges over the divergent margins of the under
riding continental plate.
The general transition from deep-water pelagic, deep water clastics(flysh) to
shallow water and non marine clastics(molasse)(Dott, 1974).