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Seismic features and origin of sediment waves in the Qiongdongnan Basin, northern South China Sea

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Abstract

Sediment waves have been documented around the world for several decades, and their origins are still debated because of their various characteristics in different settings. Based on numerous high-resolution seismic profiles and two boreholes, sediment waves are identified in deepwater areas of the eastern Qiongdongnan Basin, and their distribution and seismic features are illustrated. Combined with the bathymetry, the potential origins of these sediment waves are discussed. Drilling in the central canyon revealed that the channel infill comprises some along-slope fine-grained turbidites, which are good reservoir for gas plays. The sediment waves are distributed on the banks of the central canyon and their seismic features indicate that most of them are caused by turbidity current overflows along the canyon. Although previous researches on these sediment waves suggested that they were of westward-flowing contourite origin, detailed topographic map derived from the seafloor reflector on seismic data shows that there is a N–S trending ridge at the east part of sediment wave zones, which could block and divert the bottom current. According to the geometry of sediment waves, the flow thicknesses across the entire wave field are calculated as 280–560 m, and the current velocity falls in the range of 30–130 cm/s, which would favor a fine-grained composition and could be a good reservoir because of the better sorting of turbidites than contourites or other gravity flow deposits.

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Acknowledgments

The study is a contribution to the projects the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 91028009 and 40806019), the Special Foundation for State Major Basic Research Program of China (No. 2011ZX05025-0020-020-03), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (CUGL100409). We would like to acknowledge the Zhanjiang Branch of China National Offshore Oil Corporation for providing geological data. In addition, we are grateful for the constructive comments and insightful suggestions from guest editor Prof. Peter Clift and two anonymous reviewers.

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Jiang, T., Xie, X., Wang, Z. et al. Seismic features and origin of sediment waves in the Qiongdongnan Basin, northern South China Sea. Mar Geophys Res 34, 281–294 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11001-013-9198-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11001-013-9198-0

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