Tectonic Subsidence Analysis of the Pearl River Mouth Basin, Northern South China Sea

Abstract:

The Pearl River Mouth Basin (PRMB hereafter) in the northern margin of the South China Sea has attracted great attention not only because of its special tectonic location but also for its abundant hydrocarbon resources. Tectonic evolution controls the petroleum geological condition of hydrocarbon-bearing basins. Efforts have been made to understand the tectonic evolution of this basin. However, many issues about the tectonic features and the evolution process of this basin, such as the age of the breakup unconformities and the anomalously accelerated subsidence during the post-rifting stage, remain controversial.

Here we employ tectonic subsidence analysis of sedimentary basins, a technique of removing isostatic loading and compaction effects by back-stripping, to investigate the tectonic controls on the basin formation of the PRMB. We performed the analysis on 4 drill wells and 43 synthetic wells constructed based on recently acquired seismic profiles. The result shows that tectonic subsidence in the eastern sags of the PRMB began to decrease at ~30Ma while in the western sags the onset was ~23.8Ma. This suggests that the break-up time i.e. the end of rifting in the PRMB is earlier in the eastern sags than in the western sags. Abnormally accelerated tectonic subsidence occurred between 17.5-16.4Ma during the post-rifting stage, at an average subsidence rate as high as 301.9m/Ma. This phenomenon discriminates the PRMB from the category of classical Atlantic passive continental marginal basins, of which the tectonic subsidence during the post-rifting stage decays exponentially. The main objective of this paper is to provide insights into the geological and geodynamic evolution of the PRMB. The result bears significance to hydrocarbon exploration in this region.