000 02900nab a2200193 4500
005 20260520000312.0
008 260224s2011 xxu
100 1 _aNyman, Stephanie L.
_951843
100 1 _aNelson, Campbell S.
_925004
245 0 0 _aThe place of tubular concretions in hydrocarbon cold seep systems: Late Miocene Urenui Formation, Taranaki Basin, New Zealand
260 _csep. 2011
270 _a05/10/2011 ; 05/10/2011
300 _a30 p. ; 1495-1524
520 _aTranscripción del resumen del autor. The late Miocene Urenui Formation cropping out on the eastern margin of Taranaki Basin, currently New Zealand's only commercially exploited hydrocarbon basin, is dominated by siliciclastic slope mudstone (<5% carbonate) that locally includes a variety of tubular concretions (50&#x96;85% carbonate). Dominated by commonly large pipe and bulbous varieties, as much as 0.5 to more than 10 m (1.6 to >33 ft) long and 5 to 70 cm (2 to 28 in.) across, these concretions formed from the precipitation of fine-grained calcite or dolomite cement within siliciclastic mud in the shallow subsurface (likely <100 m burial). Most support a central conduit that may be empty or filled with sediment or multiple generations of post-shallow-burial carbonate cements. Depleted 13C values of the concretionary calcite cements (&#x96;40 to &#x96;25 PDB) indicate that their carbon was sourced from oxidized methane. In contrast, enriched 13C values of the concretionary dolomite cements (&#x96;10 to +11 PDB) indicate that their carbon was derived from methanogenic CO2 and/or extensive methane oxidation. The range of 18O values for the concretionary cement types (&#x96;2 to +5 PDB) supports precipitation from fluids both depleted and enriched with respect to New Zealand Miocene marine waters, which are suggested to reflect episodes of gas hydrate formation and dissociation, respectively. The tubular carbonate concretions are interpreted to mark the subsea-floor pathways of focused methane infused upward fluid escape, and as such, they represent a part of the shallow subsurface plumbing system of a cold seep system developed on the continental margin bounding the Taranaki Basin in the late Miocene. This margin has been strongly influenced by periodic movements along the major Taranaki fault thrust system, which coincidentally directly underlies the Urenui concretion occurrences and was probably the most likely avenue for active fluid migration within the hydrocarbon seep system. The tubular concretions experienced periodic intervals of exhumation and burial caused by margin failure because of greater slope instability from injected fluids and resulted in conglomeratic channel-fill deposits within the Urenui Formation that include mass-transported tubular concretions.
581 _a9
773 0 _tAAPG Bulletin
_g95
942 _cARTICULO
999 _c186057
_d186057