Intraplate uplift: new constraints on the Hoggar dome from the Illizi basin (Algeria)

English, Kara L.; Redfern, Jonathan; Bertotti, Giovanni; English, Joseph M.; Cherif, Rachida Yahia

doi:10.1111/bre.12182

Cited by 19 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 61 publications

(126 reference statements)

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“…1). The fluid inclusion record confirms that an early stage, low-salinity brine in the Ordovician sandstones in the Illizi Basin was displaced by a higher salinity fluid (English et al 2016c during ~1.0-1.4 km of exhumation that occurred during the Eocene-Miocene (English et al 2016d) (Fig. 2).…”

supporting

confidence: 59%

“…This study focuses on geomechanical data collected from a large (80 km by 50 km) Ordovician gascondensate field in the southern Illizi Basin (Fig. 1), where intraplate uplift resulted in ~1.0-1.4 km of exhumation during the Eocene-Miocene (English et al 2016d). This field is a large, lowrelief four-way structural closure with a hydrocarbon column in excess of 100 m. The reservoir is…”

Section: Geomechanical Characterization Of the Illizi Basinmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Schowalter 1979). However, many sedimentary basins around the world are no longer under conditions of maximum burial and have been subjected to one or more exhumation events during their history (Japsen 1998, Issler et al 1999, Corcoran & Mecklenburgh 2005, Underdown & Redfern 2007, Hillis et al 2008, Dixon et al 2010, Green & Duddy 2010, Japsen et al 2010, Japsen et al 2012, English et al 2016d. Although low levels of petroleum generation may continue during the initial cooling phase (English et al 2016e), the exhumation and cooling of source rocks generally leads to the cessation of active petroleum generation within the basin.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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State of stress in exhumed basins and implications for fluid flow: insights from the Illizi Basin, Algeria

English¹,

Finkbeiner

English³

et al. 2017

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The petroleum prospectivity of an exhumed basin is largely dependent on the ability of preexisting traps to retain oil and gas volumes during and after the exhumation event. Although faults may act as lateral seals in petroleum traps, they may start to become hydraulically conductive again and enable fluid flow and hydrocarbon leakage during fault reactivation. Herein, we constrain the present-day in situ stresses of the exhumed Illizi Basin in Algeria, and demonstrate that the primary N-S and NW-SE (vertical strike-slip) fault systems in the study area are close to critical stress (i.e., incipient state of shear failure). In contrast, the overpressured and unexhumed Berkine Basin and Hassi Messaoud areas to the north do not appear to be characterized by critical stress conditions. We present conceptual models of stress evolution and demonstrate that a sedimentary basin with benign in situ stresses at maximum burial may change to being characterized by critical stress conditions on existing fault systems during exhumation. These models are supportive of the idea that breaching of a closed, overpressured system during exhumation of the Illizi Basin may have been a driving mechanism for regional updip flow of high-salinity formation water within the Ordovician reservoirs during Eocene-Miocene time. This work also has implications for petroleum exploration in exhumed basins. Fault-bounded traps with faults oriented at a high-angle to the maximum principal horizontal stress direction in strike-slip or normal-faulting stress regimes are more likely to have retained hydrocarbons in exhumed basins in comparison to fault-bounded traps with faults that are more optimally oriented for shear failure and, therefore, have a greater propensity to become critically stressed during exhumation.

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confidence: 59%

Section: Geomechanical Characterization Of the Illizi Basinmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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State of stress in exhumed basins and implications for fluid flow: insights from the Illizi Basin, Algeria

English¹,

Finkbeiner

English³

et al. 2017

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“…A "trans-Saharan seaway" connected the Tethys Ocean, in the north, to the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, in the south (Reyment, 1980;Luger, 2003), and shallow-marine brackish shales and limestones were deposited (Dufaure et al, 1984;Zanguina et al, 1998). Thermochronological data suggest burial of the Hoggar and Reguibat shields (Rougier et al, 2013;Leprêtre et al, 2014Leprêtre et al, , 2015English et al, 2016), consistently with subsidence under the "trans-Saharan seaway" and the northwestern Sahara basin. A wide lagoonal domain formed between these two domains, which underwent alternating transgressions and regressions (Fabre et al, 1996).…”

Section: Late Cenomanian (97-93 Ma): Maximum Continental Flooding (Fimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the Hoggar shield and along the Cameroon line, the volcanism is interpreted as "hotspot" related (Ait-Hamou and Dautria, 1994;Liégois et al, 2005;Ait-Hamou, 2006;Ngako et al, 2006;Table S2 in Supplemental Item 1 [see footnote 1]). Temperature-time paths of apatites suggest that the Hoggar shield underwent exhumation since the Late Eocene (40-30 Ma; Rougier et al, 2013;English et al, 2016). The products of its erosion are emplaced as mega fans of the "Continental Terminal" around the uplifting massif (Chardon et al, 2016).…”

Section: Oligocene (34-23 Ma): Development Of Basin-and-swell Topogramentioning

confidence: 99%

Paleogeographic and structural evolution of northwestern Africa and its Atlantic margins since the early Mesozoic

Chardon

Rouby

et al. 2017

Geosphere

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The geological evolution of northwestern Africa and its continental margins is investigated in the light of nine Meso-Cenozoic paleogeological maps, which integrate original minimal extent of sedimentary deposits beyond their present-day erosional limits. Mapping is based on a compilation of published original data on the stratigraphy and depositional environments of sediments, structures, magmatism, and low-temperature thermochonology, as well as on the interpretation of industrial seismic and borehole data.We show that rifting of the equatorial domain propagated eastward from the Central Atlantic between the Valanginian (ca. 140 Ma) and the Aptian (ca. 112 Ma) as an en echelon strike-slip and rift system connected to an inland rift network. This network defines a six-microplate synrift kinematic model for the African continental domain. We document persistent, long-wavelength eroding marginal upwarps that supplied clastic sediments to the offshore margin basins and a large intracratonic basin. The latter acted as a transient sediment reservoir because the products of its erosion were transferred both to the Tethys (to the north) and the Atlantic Ocean. This paired marginal upwarpintra cratonic basin source-to-sink system was perturbed by the growth of the late Paleogene Hoggar hotspot swell that fragmented the intracratonic basins into five residual depocenters. By linking the evolution of the continental margins to that of their African hinterland, this study bears important implications for the interplay of long-wavelength deformation and sediment transfers over paired shield-continental margin systems.

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Stabilization of large drainage basins over geological time scales: Cenozoic West Africa, hot spot swell growth, and the Niger River

Chardon

Grimaud

Rouby

et al. 2016

Geochem Geophys Geosyst

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Reconstructing the evolving geometry of large river catchments over geological time scales is crucial to constraining yields to sedimentary basins. In the case of Africa, it should further help deciphering the response of large cratonic sediment routing systems to Cenozoic growth of the basin-and-swell topography of the continent. Mapping of dated and regionally correlated lateritic paleolandscape remnants complemented by onshore sedimentological archives allows the reconstruction of two physiographic configurations of West Africa in the Paleogene. Those reconstructions show that the geometry of the drainage is stabilized by the late early Oligocene (29 Ma) and probably by the end of the Eocene (34 Ma), allowing to effectively link the inland morphoclimatic record to offshore sedimentation since that time, particularly in the case of the Niger catchment-delta system. Mid-Eocene paleogeography reveals the antiquity of the Senegambia catchment back to at least 45 Ma and suggests that a marginal upwarp forming a continental divide preexisted early Oligocene connection of the Niger and Volta catchments to the Equatorial Atlantic Ocean. Such a drainage rearrangement was primarily enhanced by the topographic growth of the Hoggar hot spot swell and caused a stratigraphic turnover along the Equatorial margin of West Africa.

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Intraplate uplift: new constraints on the Hoggar dome from the Illizi basin (Algeria)

Cited by 19 publications

References 61 publications

State of stress in exhumed basins and implications for fluid flow: insights from the Illizi Basin, Algeria

State of stress in exhumed basins and implications for fluid flow: insights from the Illizi Basin, Algeria

Paleogeographic and structural evolution of northwestern Africa and its Atlantic margins since the early Mesozoic

Stabilization of large drainage basins over geological time scales: Cenozoic West Africa, hot spot swell growth, and the Niger River

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