| PDF: | |
| Time: | 2011 |
| Journal: | Acta Petrolei Sinica |
| Volumn: | 32 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Pages: | 580-587 |
| Type: | EI |
| Author: | Baoliang Lu,Pujun Wang,Gongcheng Zhang,Bin Zhang,Xiaomeng Sun,Wuzhi Li,Yuanqiang Lang |
Abstract: | The epicontinental area of the northern South China Sea was influenced by the subduction and compression of the Pacific plate towards the eastern Asia continent during the Mesozoic, as a result, it uplifted heterogeneously in multiple stages. Bounded by the Qionghai fault and the eastern Yangjiang-Yitongansha fault, the basement of this epicontinental area is younger from west to east, showing a distributional pattern of being laterally divided into three stepped blocks and vertically formed by various zonal structures. The basement of Qiongdongnan Basin, westward from the Qionghai fault, is composed of a two-layer structure with the Proterozoic as the lower unit and the Palaeozoic as the upper unit but a hiatus of the Mesozoic. The western basement of the Pearl River Mouth Basin, eastward from the Qionghai fault and westward from the Yangjiang-Yitongansha fault, consists of an incomplete three-layer structure with the Mesozoic distributed as isolated islands, while the eastern basement of the Pearl River Mouth Basin, eastward from the Yangjiang-Yitongansha fault, is made up of a complete three-layer structure with the Proterozoic, Palaeozoic and Mesozoic well preserved. The result achieved from the study on these basement structures has indicated that the Chaoshan depression and the Dongsha uplift zone in the eastern Pearl River Mouth Basin have regionally thick Mesozoic strata, in which large-scale broad and gentle fold belts are developed and relatively thicker dark mudstones are distributed, suggesting a fairly good potential of source rocks. Furthermore, thicker Paleogene fault-depression deposits overlying the basement are capable of serving as caprocks in a complete petroleum system. Therefore, pre-Cenozoic epicontinental strata of the northern South China Sea are of a good petroleum prospect. |