Print this pageABSTRACT: Tectonic and Paleogeographic Settings of Northeast Asian Hydrocarbon Systems
William L. Lindemann, Kenneth O. Stanley
Most of China and Soviet Asia were formed by the welding of microcontinents and accretionary wedge assemblages from the Devonian through the Late Cretaceous. The first hydrocarbon systems developed in late Precambrian to middle Paleozoic basins on continental platform blocks prior to the Hercynian welding of plates. Later hydrocarbon systems developed in both extensional and compressional successor basins associated with plate collisions from the late Paleozoic to the Cenozoic.
Basins with cratonic tectono-stratigraphic assemblages, which formed on Archean-early Paleozoic microcontinent plates, feature hydrocarbon systems that are sourced by marine rocks and reservoired in weathered crusts and/or clastic/carbonate platform rocks. The upper Precambrian and Paleozoic of east Siberia, the middle Paleozoic of west Siberia, and the lower Paleozoic of the Tarim basin are examples of this hydrocarbon system.
The rift-sag successor basins, which developed on these welded microplates and accretionary wedges after collision, feature hydrocarbon systems produced from mostly nonmarine rocks in China and mostly marine rocks in Russia. Example successor basins include the marine Jurassic-Cretaceous West Siberian interior sag basin formed over several microplates; the nonmarine Cretaceous-Tertiary rift-sag Songliao and north China basins; and the Neogene extensional strike-slip North Sakhalin basin.
The compressional basins formed as a result of late Paleozoic to Cenozoic plate collisions. These basins feature hydrocarbon systems in marine and/or nonmarine rocks depending on the paleogeographic setting. The best example is the late Paleozoic-Mesozoic nonmarine Junggar basin in northwest China.
AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91003©1990 AAPG Annual Convention, San Francisco, California, June 3-6, 1990