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Systems Tracts

The document discusses systems tracts, which are three-dimensional depositional units bounded by seismic reflection terminations. There are typically three main systems tracts within a relative sea-level cycle: the lowstand systems tract deposited during sea-level fall, the transgressive systems tract deposited during sea-level rise, and the highstand systems tract deposited after maximum transgression as sea-level rises more slowly than sediment supply. Each systems tract contains characteristic depositional features that can be used to interpret the sequence stratigraphy of an area.

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Bamidele Samuel Oresajo
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309 views

Systems Tracts

The document discusses systems tracts, which are three-dimensional depositional units bounded by seismic reflection terminations. There are typically three main systems tracts within a relative sea-level cycle: the lowstand systems tract deposited during sea-level fall, the transgressive systems tract deposited during sea-level rise, and the highstand systems tract deposited after maximum transgression as sea-level rises more slowly than sediment supply. Each systems tract contains characteristic depositional features that can be used to interpret the sequence stratigraphy of an area.

Uploaded by

Bamidele Samuel Oresajo
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Systems Tracts

Systems tract- idealized type-1 sequence shown is representative of a shelf-break margin. Deposition in a basin is not uniform and continuous but occurred in a series of discrete packets bounded by seismic reflection terminations.

These packages are known as systems tract.


The term was first used by Brown and Fisher (1977) to represent contemporaneous depositional systems. Depositional systems are a three- dimensional assemblage of lithofacies, genetically linked by active (modern) or inferred (ancient) processes and environments. A system tract is therefore a threedimensional unit of deposition, and the boundaries of a system tract are depositional boundaries of onlap, downlap, etc.

Systems Tract
Within one relative sea-level cycle, three main systems tracts are frequently developed. The system tract represents the fundamental mapping unit that contains depositional systems for which a paleogeographic map can be drawn.

Lowstand system tract


The basal system tract in a type 1 depositional sequence. It is deposited during an interval of relative sea-level fall at the offlap break, and subsequent slow relative sea-level rise. Falling relative sea-level at the offlap break of a shelf-break margin will have an extreme effect on the river system.

Prior to relative sea-level fall the river have a more or less a graded river profile with erosional upper portion and a depositional lower portion. With relative sea-level fall the river will have to adjust to the lowered base level. The river incises into the previous deposited topsets. These rewroked sediments, and the fluvial load from the land, are delivered directly on to the previous highstand clinoform.

Because the river is not free to avulse, the sediments are focused towards the same point in the slope. Because instability the sedimentation processes are dominated by largescale slope failure resulting in bypass of the slope and deposition of submarine fans in the basin.

At the river sea-level low point the river profile stabilizes again, and a prograding topset-clinoform system can then be stablish. The first topset of this system will onlap below the level of the previous offlap break. This is known as a downward shift in coastal onlap below the level of the offlap break.

Relationship between sea-level, topset accomodatio n volume, and systems tracts, in a simple numerical model

Low stand submarine fans


Two distinctive fan units can be recognized within the lowstand submarine fan; an initial basin floor fan unit, detached from the foot of the slope, and a subsequent slope fan unit, abutting the slope, occasionally referred to as slope front fill. Submarine fan deposits on the lower slope or basin. Associated with erosion of canyons into the slope. Turbidites and debris flow.

Lowstand prograding wedge.


Topset clinoform system deposited during accelerating relative sea-level rise. It is separated from the overlying transgressive system tract by a maximun prograding surface.

Transgressive Systems Tract (TST)

It is the middle systems tract of both type 1 and type 2 sequences. It is deposited during the part of the relative sea-level rise cycle when topset accomodation volume is increasing faster than the rate of sediment supply.

Transgressive Systems Tract


It contain mostly topsets, with few associated clinoforms, and is entirely retrogradational. The active depositional systems are topset systems:
alluvial, paralic (coal deposits formed along the margin of the sea), coastal plains shelfal.

Transgressive Systems Tract


Widw shelf area are characteristic of transgressive systems tract. The Transgressive Systems Tract passes distantlly into a condensed section characterized by extremely low rates of deposition and the development of condensed facies such as glauconitic, organic reach and/or phosphatic shales, or pelagic carbonates.

Transgressive Systems Tract


The maximum rate of rise of sealevel occurs some time within the transgressive sytems tract, and the end of the systems tract occurs when the rate of topset accomodation volume decreases to a point where it just matches sediment supply, and progradation begins again. This point is known as Maximum Flooding Surface.

Transgressive Systems Tract


Topsets of the TST tend to have a lower sand percentage than those of other systems tracts, because little of the mud-grade sediment bypasses the topsets. TST can therefore often hast sealing horizons to topset reservoirs, and also source beds. Present-day depositional systems over much of the glove form a TST.

Highstant Systems Tract (HST)

The HST is the youngest sytems tract in either a type 1 or a type 2 sequence. It represent the progradational topsetclinoform system deposited after maximum transgression, and before a sequence boundary, when the rate of creation of accommodation is less than the rate of sediment supply.

Highstant Systems Tract (HST)

Deposits are similar initially to those of TST, but the infill of shelf areas by progradation, and the decrease in the rate of sea-level rise, may lead to a decrease in tidal influence and adecrease in the amount of coal, and of overbanks, laggonal and lacustrine shales.

Relative sea-level may fall over the proximal area of the highstant topsets, without falling at the offlap break. A sequence boundary results, but not one characterized by fluvial incision or submarine fan deposition. The sequence boundary is recognized in the seismic lines by a downward shift in coastal onlap to a position landward of the offlap break, where topset reflections can be seen onlapping an older topset.

Type 2 sequence boundary and the shelf-margin systems tract

Type 2 sequence boundary

Type 2 sequence boundary


The sequence boundary is overlain by a shelf-margin system tract of topsets with a predominantly aggradational stacking pattern. The rate of sea-level fall at the shoreline is equal to , or less than, the subsidence.

Low stand systems tracts on a ramp margin


Previous descrived systems are developed on a shelf-break margin. On a ramp margin, the lowstand systems tract consis of a relatively thin lowstand wedge that may contain two parts:

The first part is characterized by stream incision and sediment bypass of the coastal plain. This occurs during a relative fall in sea-level when the shoreline steps rapidlly basinward.

The second part of the wedge is characterized by a slow relative rise in sealevel, the infilling of incised valleys, and continued shoreline progradation.

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