Basin outline: Gulf of Mexico example

Exploring for Oil and Gas Traps
Series	Treatise in Petroleum Geology
Part	Critical elements of the petroleum system
Chapter	Sedimentary basin analysis
Author	John M. Armentrout
Link	Web page
Store	AAPG Store

Discussion

Figure 1 Geographic distribution of the Neogene Mississippi River drainage basin and distribution of the primary fluvial input systems (arrows). Modified after Winker and Buffler.

The Gulf of Mexico (GOM) basin includes strata beneath the present-day Gulf of Mexico and extends onshore beneath the coastal plain of Mexico and the United States. Sediment is supplied primarily by fluvial systems draining the ancestral Mississippi River system and smaller river systems draining the Rocky, Ouachita, and Appalachian mountain ranges. Lesser amounts of carbonate sediments are produced locally by biochemical processes. Critical to the understanding of the GOM basin history and the associated petroleum systems of the northern Gulf of Mexico is the interaction of the Cretaceous-Holocene Mississippi drainage basin and thick salt deposited during the Jurassic.

Figure 1 shows the geographic distribution of the Neogene Mississippi River drainage basin and distribution of the primary fluvial input systems (arrows). It also shows the interpreted limits of thick Jurassic salt (>1.5 km). The geographic shifts of primary fluvial input have resulted in depocenters of different ages across the GOM Paleogene basin.

See also

• How to define the framework of a basin
• Example: mapping sediment thickness and field location
• Example: mapping hydrocarbon types

External links

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