RIEKE, HOLGER, TOMMY McCANN, and J. W. F. NEGENDANK
GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, Germany

Abstract: The Upper Rotliegend of the Northeast German Basin sequence Stratigraphy of Continental Strata

The intracontinental Northeast German Basin is located between the stable Precambrian Baltic Shield to the north and the Caledonian/Variscan-influenced areas to the south. It forms part of the southern Rotliegend Basin, a series of interconnected basins extending more than 1500 km from England to Poland. The Northeast German Basin is of considerable economic value and finds of gas in the Upper Rotliegend strata were made in the late 1980's.

The database for this study is a series of wireline logs and selected core material from the 47 research wells drilled in the German Democratic Republic between 1964 and 1987.

The basin contains up to 1400 rn of Upper Rotliegend sedimentary rocks, subdivided into four formations and deposited over a period of ca. 8 Ma. The sediments are predominantly continental, deposited under and and semi-arid conditions and show lateral facies variations from playa lake and sabkha in the basin centre to dune fields and alluvial fans at the margins.

Initial work focused on the recognition and correlation of the playa lake facies in the basin centre. This included the recognition of clay layers as maximum flooding surfaces (MFS) and evaporitic layers as lowstand system tracts (LST). The cyclicity of sea-level rise and fall appear to be related to climatic changes caused by global Milankovitch cycles.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90928©1999 AAPG Annual Convention, San Antonio, Texas