Provenance and depositional environments of early Cretaceous sediments in the Bredasdorp sub-basin, offshore South Africa: An integrated approach

Abstract

Southern offshore basins of South Africa are well known as potential provinces of hydrocarbon exploration and production. The complex nature of the Bredasdorp sub-basin’s syn-rift architecture (transform fault system) can have adverse effects on reservoir distribution due to periodic local and regional uplift of horsts and grabens. This present investigation focusses on an integrated approach of the 1AT1-V horizon or early Cretaceous sediments in the Bredasdorp sub-basin to identify the depositional environment and provenance of these sediments as well as their role in regionally complex compositional heterogeneities associated with the late stage rifting of Gondwana break-up. An integrated seismic, sedimentological (including petrography and geochemistry) and ichnologic analysis of the 1AT1-V horizon sediments showed an overall lower regressive element complex assemblage set and an upper transgressive element complex assemblage set that occurred as a >120m thick succession. The analysis identified a mixed-energy deltaic succession followed by an estuarine succession. The 1AT1-V interval (late syn-rift) consisted of nine sedimentary facies associations (and associated petrofacies) on a dipslope setting with variations occurring along the strike and the downdip depositional slope areas.