GeoArctic Pioneers Deformable
Plate Technology
In 1999
GeoArctic significantly advanced deformable plate modelling
with the development of the first deformable plate reconstruction
software that accurately removed the effects of pre-breakup
extension across conjugate margins, thereby providing
a means to better evaluate basin formation and evolution.
For the first time accurately restored structure maps,
palaeogeography maps, sediment source area maps, source
rock and reservoir facies maps could be reconstructed
to their relative palaeo-position allowing us to evaluate
the structural development of a basin, the depositional
setting and provenance of reservoir rocks, source rock
distribution, basin connectivity, palaeo-climate and
ocean currents.
The deformable plate model comprising
calculations of vertical movement and lateral, depth-dependent,
and time-dependent variations in the amount and direction
of stretching are stored as TINs
(Triangulated Irregular Networks), a vector data structure
that partitions geographic space into
contiguous, non-overlapping Delaunay triangles. The
information stored in the TINs can be applied to any
gridded or vector datasets such as structure maps,
palaeogeographic maps, wells, licence blocks, and seismic
lines, etc. to restore their geometry through geologic
time.
Since
1999 GeoArctic’s technology has been used successfully
in proprietary industry studies in the North Atlantic
and Arctic. In 2007 Fugro-Robertson adopted GeoArctic’s
deformable plate technology for their Plate Wizard™
global plate reconstruction initiative. GeoArctic continues
to use the software and other proprietary tools and
techniques for regional studies, proprietary industry
studies, including the ongoing North
Atlantic-Arctic deformable-plate model research project.
Selected References...
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A New
Approach to Plate Kinematics
GeoArctic’s proprietary plate
tectonic modeling workflow allows all available regional
geological and geophysical data to be used to build a
detailed structural and palaeogeographic history of a
margin. We create maps of continental lithospheric extension
(ß factors) for each tectonic event around a margin
(ßeta-STACK™). The ßeta-STACK™
is the primary input to the deformable plate reconstruction
software.
GeoArctic's deformable plate reconstruction
method advances earlier ideas first put forward by Srivastava
and Verhoef (1992) for the removal of extension at plate
margins. Their approach, however, used a gross estimation
of ß factors from the measurement of plate overlap,
which cannot account for lateral, depth-dependent, and
time-dependent variations in the amount and direction
of extension or movement in the vertical plane due to
tectonic subsidence. The workflow and methods designed
by GeoArctic to create the ßeta-STACK™ are
key to the development of deformable plate models and
reconstructions and represent a new approach to defining
pre-breakup plate kinematics. Whittaker
et al (2000) first describe a 4D deformable plate
reconstruction using ß factors calculated from 3D
tectonic subsidence maps as input. This method has since
evolved to include the wide range of geological processes
responsible for basin development as input into a deformable
plate model.
References:
Whittaker, R. C. Karpuz.
R., Wheeler. W, & Ady, B. 2000: 4D
regional tectonic modeling [of the North Atlantic]: plate
reconstructions using a geographic information system.
PETEX Convention, London, Abstract
Srivastava S. P., & Verhoef, J., 1992:
Evolution of Mesozoic sedimentary
basins around the North Central Atlantic: a preliminary
plate kinematic solution. In J. Parnell (Ed.), Basins
on the Atlantic Seaboard: petroleum geology, sedimentology
and basin evolution, Geological Society, Special Publication,
62, 397-420.
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