Deformable Plate Reconstructions: Modelling the Relationship between Hyperextension, Basin Evolution and Flexural Uplift

Summary Deformable plate reconstructions combined with thermal subsidence and flexural uplift modelling help give us a clearer understanding of the relationship between hyperextension, sedimentary basin evolution, and basin margin uplift. These new methods of evaluating hyperextended and continental margins provide input for environment of deposition interpretations and for basin modelling. We use a palinspastic deformable-margin plate reconstruction modelling method for the Central and North Atlantic, and Circum-Arctic to evaluate some emerging deep-water provinces. These include exciting new areas such as Guyana/Suriname-Mauritania/Senegal conjugate margins in the Central Atlantic, the Porcupine and Orphan Basins in the North Atlantic, and the southwest Barents Shelf and Labrador Sea circum-Arctic basins. Many of these areas share characteristic structural features associated with hyperextension such as high rates of subsidence, uplift of the basin margins, the development of submarine escarpments, perched basins, highly rotated fault blocks and localised shear zones. The structural features that characterize hyperextended margins are not well documented are often overlooked, but when the structural processes are fully understood they can provide us with potential new petroleum plays.