Late Eocene–early Miocene provenance evolution of the Crocker Fan in the southern South China Sea
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Abstract: There are many large-scale Cenozoic sedimentary basins with plentiful river deltas, deep-water fans and carbonate platforms in the southern South China Sea. The Crocker Fan was deposited as a typical submarine fan during the late Eocene–early Miocene, and stretches extensively across the entire Sarawak–Sabah of the northern Borneo area. However, systematic analyses are still lacking regarding its sediment composition and potential source suppliers. No consensus has been reached yet on the provenance evolution and sedimentary infilling processes, which seriously impeded the oil-and-gas exploration undertakings. By combining with sedimentary-facies identification, heavy mineral assemblages, elemental geochemistry and detrital zircon U-Pb dating, this paper aims to generalize an integrated analysis on the potential provenance terranes and restore source-to-sink pathways of the Crocker Fan. In general, the Crocker Fan was initially formed over the Cretaceous–lower/middle Eocene Rajang Group by an angular Rajang unconformity. The continual southward subduction of the proto-South China Sea resulted in magmatic activities and subsequent regional deformation and thrusting along the Lupar Line in the northern Borneo. The lowermost Crocker sequence is featured by a thick conglomerate layer sourced from in-situ or adjacent paleo-uplifts. From the late Eocene to the early Miocene, the Crocker Fan was constantly delivered with voluminous detritus from the Malay Peninsula of the western Sundaland. The Zengmu Basin was widely deposited with delta plain and neritic facies sediments, while the Brunei-Sabah Basin, to the farther east, was ubiquitously characterized by turbiditic sequences. The Crocker Fan successions are overall thick layers of modest-grained sandstones, which formed high-quality reservoirs in the southern South China Sea region.
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Key words:
- source-to-sink analysis /
- zircon U-Pb age /
- submarine fan /
- Malay Peninsula /
- southern South China Sea
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Figure 1. Simplified geological map and sample location of the southern SCS (a) and stratigraphic framework of the northern Borneo based on Hall and Breitfeld (2017) (b) speculated geographic extent of the Crocker Fan.
Figure 2. The Rajang Unconformity between the underlain Rajang Group and the overlying upper Eocene Crocker Fan (a); Rangsi conglomerates within the lowermost layer of the Crocker Fan (b); shallow-marine sediments of the Tatau Formation (c); trace fossils perpendicular to the strata, Buan Formation (d); shallow-marine sediments of the Nyalau Formation (e); small cross-beddings in the Nyalau Formation, sandstones interbedded with mudstone laminations (f); limestone of the Setap Shale enriched with foraminiferal fossils, Sabah (g); erosion surface at the lowermost section of the Crocker Fan turbidtes (h); normal upward-graded beddings in the Bouma Sequence (i); wedge-shape sandstone layer, Kudat Formation (j); and thick sandstone layers, Kudat Formation (k).
Figure 3. Heavy mineral assemblages of the Crocker Fan sediments; Samples TB200a and TB54 are compiled data from Hennig-Breitfeld et al. (2019).
Figure 4. Rare earth elemental distribution pattern (PAAS from Taylor and McLennan (1985))(a); TiO2 vs. Zr discrimination plot(b); and Al2O3 vs. TiO2 discrimination plot (based on Hayashi et al. (1997)) (c).
Figure 5. Detrital zircon U-Pb age spectra of the turbidite sediments within the northern Borneo (N represents the number of effective analyses; Samples TB200a, TB54, TA04, TB199b are compiled data from Hennig-Breitfeld et al. (2019); Samples Unit1, Unit2 and Unit3 are compiled data from Galin et al. (2017))
Figure 6. Detrital zircon U-Pb age spectra of the potential source terranes (N represents the number of effective analyses; samples “eastern”, “central” and “western” are compiled data from Sevastjanova et al. (2011); Samples TB250a, 713b and 712 are compiled data from Breitfeld et al. (2017); Samples EK14-1, EK14-6, EK14-10, TB-76, TB71a are compiled data from Hennig et al. (2017))
Table 1. Sample information
Sample No. Age Lithology Method Reference EK14-1 Cretaceous granodiorite zircon U-Pb dating Hennig et al., 2017 EK14-6 Cretaceous quartz diorite zircon U-Pb dating Hennig et al., 2017 EK14-10 Cretaceous diorite zircon U-Pb dating Hennig et al., 2017 TB-76 Cretaceous granodiorite zircon U-Pb dating Hennig et al., 2017 TB71a Cretaceous granodiorite zircon U-Pb dating Hennig et al., 2017 TB54 upper Eocene/Rangsi conglomerate heavy mineral analysis/ Zircon U-Pb dating Hennig-Breitfeld et al., 2019 TA04 upper Eocene /Rangsi conglomerate zircon U-Pb dating Hennig-Breitfeld et al., 2019 TB199b upper Eocene /Rangsi conglomerate zircon U-Pb dating Hennig-Breitfeld et al., 2019 TB200a lower Oligocene/Tatau sandstone heavy mineral analysis/Zircon U-Pb dating Hennig-Breitfeld et al., 2019 TB250a Triassic/Kuching volcaniclastic rocks zircon U-Pb dating Breitfeld et al., 2017 713b Triassic/Sadong volcaniclastic rocks zircon U-Pb dating Breitfeld et al., 2017 712 Triassic/Sadong volcaniclastic rocks zircon U-Pb dating Breitfeld et al., 2017 SA-54 boundary of Eocene and Oligocene strata sandstone heavy mineral analysis this study SA-51 upper Eocene−lower Oligocene/Tatau sandstone heavy mineral analysis this study SA-69 lower Miocene/Lambir sandstone heavy mineral analysis this study SA-61 Oligocene−lower Miocene/Nyalau sandstone heavy mineral analysis this study S87 Oligocene−lower Miocene/Setap sandstone heavy mineral analysis/elemental geochemistry this study S27 Paleocene−lower or middle Eocene/Trusmadi sandstone heavy mineral analysis/elemental geochemistry this study S17 upper Eocene-Oligocene/Crocker sandstone heavy mineral analysis/elemental geochemistry/zircon U-Pb dating this study S7 Oligocene/Kudat sandstone heavy mineral analysis/elemental geochemistry this study S6 Oligocene−Miocene/Wariu sandstone heavy mineral analysis/elemental geochemistry/zircon U-Pb dating this study K23 lower Oligocene/Tebidah sandstone zircon U-Pb dating this study M28 Triassic sandstone zircon U-Pb dating this study M23 Jurassic sandstone zircon U-Pb dating this study M16 Carboniferous sandstone zircon U-Pb dating this study M6 Carboniferous sandstone zircon U-Pb dating this study -
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