COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Experimental Study of Basin Stratigraphy

9725989 Paola We propose a three-year program of experimental studies o the formation of physical stratigraphy, using a large new experimental basin with a subsiding floor at the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory (SAFL). This facility allows study of scaled basin processes with complete control of base level, sediment supply and, especially, subsidence pattern and rate. The basin is 13m by 6.5m and allows up to 1.3m of accommodation space for deposition. The subsiding floor comprises 432 independently controllable subsidence cells arranged in a honeycomb pattern. This design allows the creation of a nearly unlimited range of spatial and temporal subsidence patterns. Sediment and water can be fed from anywhere along the basin margin and base level (i.e. water level) is independently controllable. Our first experiments will be aimed at testing some of the first-order predictions of models that have been proposed for formation of physical stratigraphy at basin scales, such as: (1) the relationship of shoreline migration and associated stratigraphy to the interplay between subsidence rate and eustatic sea level; (2) the control of subsidence rate and geometry, and sediment supply, on alluvial coarse-facies distribution (i.e. the origin of syntectonic gravel's); and (3) the influence of subsidence rate and sediment supply on the development of alluvial architecture. Initial results suggest that the experiments can also provide insight on processes such as growth faulting that have not been widely incorporated into existing models. These experiments will use relatively simple subsidence and sediment-feed geometries and will focus on demonstrating 'unit' stratigraphic response to changes in one or at most two variables simultaneously. The second set of experiments will focus on 3-D effects in both subsidence and sediment supply, including: 1) 3-D effects of base-level change; 2) propagating active folding in the proximal basin associated with blind thrusts and development of progressive un conformities; 3) sedimentation in an asymmetric half graben combining both transverse and axial drainage. The principal products of the experiments will include: time records of the imposed variables (water and sediment supply, base level, and basement topography); measurements of bed-surface topography through time; video records of flow pattern, shoreline position and other surface features; 3-D block diagrams of the resulting deposits, presented both as directly digitized (photographic) and synthetic seismic images; and synthetic geophysical logs of selected profiles. The synthetic seismics are a crucial link with field observations, since the only way that researchers can obtain views of the rock record comparable to those generated by the experimental basin is through the filter of seismic reflection profiling. The synthetic seismics and well logs, when contrasted against the actual experimental stratigraphy, will also advance our understanding of what is and is not retained from the rock record when it is imaged via these widely used techniques. The experimental results would represent the first test under fully controlled conditions of a wide variety of theoretical predictions of stratigraphic response that have been developed since Pitman's (1978) model of shoreline response to changing sea level. They would also provide a template that could be compared with field observations and interpretations based on seismic and outcrop data. Although laboratory scale models can never capture all of the complex processes that occur in real basins, they serve as a bridge between untested theoretical models and difficult-to-constrain natural examples.