Deep, Ellesmerian Orogenic Structures Beneath Syn-rift and Post-rift Strata, Central and Eastern Beaufort Shelf of Alaska

The second day of the 3P Arctic Conference & Exhibition is 30 September. Session chairs Victoria Pease and Andrei Khudoley will welcome attendees and introduce session one speakers, who will be speaking on Arctic Orogens and Basement Rocks Beneath Sedimentary Basins. Christopher D. Connors, Washington and Lee University, will be the seventh speaker to take the platform on Wednesday.

Abstract: Deep, Ellesmerian Orogenic Structures Beneath Syn-rift and Post-rift Strata, Central and Eastern Beaufort Shelf of Alaska

The Beaufort Sea margin of Alaska, formed by Mississippian – Mesozoic rifting and Mesozoic – Cenozoic subsidence, displays a thick sediment prism that obscures the stratigraphy and structure of underlying pre-Mesozoic rocks. Reprocessed industry seismic data reveal that syn-rift and post-rift strata beneath the outer Beaufort shelf are underlain by Franklinian strata in a north-vergent fold-and-thrust belt. The belt was a possible sediment source for Ellesmerian strata of the North Slope and Brooks Range, and may have been rejuvenated during the Permian or Early Triassic. A rejuvenated highland beneath the present-day outer shelf may have been a proximal provenance area for reservoirs associated with the Prudhoe Bay depocenter just 50 km to the south, where the Lower Triassic Ivishak Sandstone is thicker and coarser-grained than anywhere in Arctic Alaska.