Genesis of honeycomb buildups in the Permian Zechstein Group, Southern North Sea

Thomas Houghton; Joyce Neilson; John Underhill; Rachel Brackenridge

doi:10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2024.107116

Genesis of honeycomb buildups in the Permian Zechstein Group, Southern North Sea

Thomas Houghton^* (Corresponding Author), Joyce Neilson, John Underhill, Rachel Brackenridge

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Seismic interpretation has revealed a hitherto unreported honeycomb pattern of carbonate buildups within the Orchard Platform (Southern North Sea). The Z2 Stassfurt Halite Fm. onlaps the southern margin of the Orchard Platform and is also found infilling Z2 intra-platform lagoons to form salt lakes. Post Z2 evaporation, the deeper Z3 water column drowned the Orchard Platform inhibiting the platform recovery attempted by the Z3 Plattendolomit Fm. The palaeobathymetric variability of the drowned Orchard Platform was sufficient to bring parts of the seafloor into the photic zone allowing for the sporadic growth of the Z3 Plattendolomit Fm. However, the palaeobathymetric lows remained beneath the photic zone ensuring an incomplete regeneration of the Orchard Platform with the creation of a high-frequency network of intra-platform lagoons which mimic the polygonal texture of a honeycomb. Whilst previously accepted as collapse structures or karst systems, this study correlates the development of the honeycomb buildups to variations in seafloor palaeobathymetry which in turn mimic the structural lineaments of the Zechstein subcrop. Syn-depositional instability in the Zechstein subcrop caused the topsets of the Z2 salt lakes to become warped. The warped halite provided seed points for Z3 Plattendolomit Fm. growth which allowed for linear ridges of carbonate to traverse the Z2 salt lakes and eventually connect with the honeycomb buildups. Deposition in the Mesozoic lead to loading of the Zechstein. Halite-filled Z3 lagoons accommodated this loading, which caused a pinching effect on the Z3 honeycomb buildups. The sedimentological understanding provided by this study not only de-risks frontier exploration but also provides insight into carbonate growth in restricted platform recovery scenarios.

Original language	English
Journal	Marine and Petroleum Geology
Early online date	18 Sept 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2024.107116
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 18 Sept 2024

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgments
The work contained in this publication was conducted during a PhD study undertaken as part of the Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Geoscience and the Low Carbon Energy Transition and is fully funded by NeoEnergy Upstream whose support is gratefully acknowledged. The interpretations and analyses were undertaken in the Centre for Energy Transition at the University of Aberdeen, the underpinning financial and computer support for which is gratefully acknowledged. We kindly thank TGS for access to and permission to publish examples from their proprietary data (TGS MNSH ION Survey) on which these interpretations and analyses are made and we are grateful to SLB for providing academic licences for their Petrel software which was used to visualise and interrogate the seismic and petrophysical data. Finally, the authors thank Tiago Alves (editor), Peter Gutteridge (reviewer), and an unnamed reviewer for their helpful suggestions which greatly improved the manuscript.

Data Availability Statement

The seismic reflection dataset related to this article belongs to TGS, the details of which can be found using the North Sea filters on the TGS website [https://www.tgs.com/seismic/multi-client/europe/north-sea]. The petrophysical dataset related to this article can be found in the National Data Repository (NDR) and is available at [https://ndr.nstauthority.co.uk/], an open-source online data repository hosted by the North Sea Transition Authority.

Keywords

Permian Zechstein
Mid North Sea High
Carbonate buildups
Palaeogeography
Palaeobathymetry

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© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Final published version, 27 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Genesis of honeycomb buildups in the Permian Zechstein Group, Southern North Sea",

abstract = "Seismic interpretation has revealed a hitherto unreported honeycomb pattern of carbonate buildups within the Orchard Platform (Southern North Sea). The Z2 Stassfurt Halite Fm. onlaps the southern margin of the Orchard Platform and is also found infilling Z2 intra-platform lagoons to form salt lakes. Post Z2 evaporation, the deeper Z3 water column drowned the Orchard Platform inhibiting the platform recovery attempted by the Z3 Plattendolomit Fm. The palaeobathymetric variability of the drowned Orchard Platform was sufficient to bring parts of the seafloor into the photic zone allowing for the sporadic growth of the Z3 Plattendolomit Fm. However, the palaeobathymetric lows remained beneath the photic zone ensuring an incomplete regeneration of the Orchard Platform with the creation of a high-frequency network of intra-platform lagoons which mimic the polygonal texture of a honeycomb. Whilst previously accepted as collapse structures or karst systems, this study correlates the development of the honeycomb buildups to variations in seafloor palaeobathymetry which in turn mimic the structural lineaments of the Zechstein subcrop. Syn-depositional instability in the Zechstein subcrop caused the topsets of the Z2 salt lakes to become warped. The warped halite provided seed points for Z3 Plattendolomit Fm. growth which allowed for linear ridges of carbonate to traverse the Z2 salt lakes and eventually connect with the honeycomb buildups. Deposition in the Mesozoic lead to loading of the Zechstein. Halite-filled Z3 lagoons accommodated this loading, which caused a pinching effect on the Z3 honeycomb buildups. The sedimentological understanding provided by this study not only de-risks frontier exploration but also provides insight into carbonate growth in restricted platform recovery scenarios.",

keywords = "Permian Zechstein, Mid North Sea High, Carbonate buildups, Palaeogeography, Palaeobathymetry",

author = "Thomas Houghton and Joyce Neilson and John Underhill and Rachel Brackenridge",

note = "Acknowledgments The work contained in this publication was conducted during a PhD study undertaken as part of the Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Geoscience and the Low Carbon Energy Transition and is fully funded by NeoEnergy Upstream whose support is gratefully acknowledged. The interpretations and analyses were undertaken in the Centre for Energy Transition at the University of Aberdeen, the underpinning financial and computer support for which is gratefully acknowledged. We kindly thank TGS for access to and permission to publish examples from their proprietary data (TGS MNSH ION Survey) on which these interpretations and analyses are made and we are grateful to SLB for providing academic licences for their Petrel software which was used to visualise and interrogate the seismic and petrophysical data. Finally, the authors thank Tiago Alves (editor), Peter Gutteridge (reviewer), and an unnamed reviewer for their helpful suggestions which greatly improved the manuscript.",

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language = "English",

journal = "Marine and Petroleum Geology",

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T1 - Genesis of honeycomb buildups in the Permian Zechstein Group, Southern North Sea

AU - Houghton, Thomas

AU - Neilson, Joyce

AU - Underhill, John

AU - Brackenridge, Rachel

N1 - Acknowledgments The work contained in this publication was conducted during a PhD study undertaken as part of the Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Geoscience and the Low Carbon Energy Transition and is fully funded by NeoEnergy Upstream whose support is gratefully acknowledged. The interpretations and analyses were undertaken in the Centre for Energy Transition at the University of Aberdeen, the underpinning financial and computer support for which is gratefully acknowledged. We kindly thank TGS for access to and permission to publish examples from their proprietary data (TGS MNSH ION Survey) on which these interpretations and analyses are made and we are grateful to SLB for providing academic licences for their Petrel software which was used to visualise and interrogate the seismic and petrophysical data. Finally, the authors thank Tiago Alves (editor), Peter Gutteridge (reviewer), and an unnamed reviewer for their helpful suggestions which greatly improved the manuscript.

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N2 - Seismic interpretation has revealed a hitherto unreported honeycomb pattern of carbonate buildups within the Orchard Platform (Southern North Sea). The Z2 Stassfurt Halite Fm. onlaps the southern margin of the Orchard Platform and is also found infilling Z2 intra-platform lagoons to form salt lakes. Post Z2 evaporation, the deeper Z3 water column drowned the Orchard Platform inhibiting the platform recovery attempted by the Z3 Plattendolomit Fm. The palaeobathymetric variability of the drowned Orchard Platform was sufficient to bring parts of the seafloor into the photic zone allowing for the sporadic growth of the Z3 Plattendolomit Fm. However, the palaeobathymetric lows remained beneath the photic zone ensuring an incomplete regeneration of the Orchard Platform with the creation of a high-frequency network of intra-platform lagoons which mimic the polygonal texture of a honeycomb. Whilst previously accepted as collapse structures or karst systems, this study correlates the development of the honeycomb buildups to variations in seafloor palaeobathymetry which in turn mimic the structural lineaments of the Zechstein subcrop. Syn-depositional instability in the Zechstein subcrop caused the topsets of the Z2 salt lakes to become warped. The warped halite provided seed points for Z3 Plattendolomit Fm. growth which allowed for linear ridges of carbonate to traverse the Z2 salt lakes and eventually connect with the honeycomb buildups. Deposition in the Mesozoic lead to loading of the Zechstein. Halite-filled Z3 lagoons accommodated this loading, which caused a pinching effect on the Z3 honeycomb buildups. The sedimentological understanding provided by this study not only de-risks frontier exploration but also provides insight into carbonate growth in restricted platform recovery scenarios.

AB - Seismic interpretation has revealed a hitherto unreported honeycomb pattern of carbonate buildups within the Orchard Platform (Southern North Sea). The Z2 Stassfurt Halite Fm. onlaps the southern margin of the Orchard Platform and is also found infilling Z2 intra-platform lagoons to form salt lakes. Post Z2 evaporation, the deeper Z3 water column drowned the Orchard Platform inhibiting the platform recovery attempted by the Z3 Plattendolomit Fm. The palaeobathymetric variability of the drowned Orchard Platform was sufficient to bring parts of the seafloor into the photic zone allowing for the sporadic growth of the Z3 Plattendolomit Fm. However, the palaeobathymetric lows remained beneath the photic zone ensuring an incomplete regeneration of the Orchard Platform with the creation of a high-frequency network of intra-platform lagoons which mimic the polygonal texture of a honeycomb. Whilst previously accepted as collapse structures or karst systems, this study correlates the development of the honeycomb buildups to variations in seafloor palaeobathymetry which in turn mimic the structural lineaments of the Zechstein subcrop. Syn-depositional instability in the Zechstein subcrop caused the topsets of the Z2 salt lakes to become warped. The warped halite provided seed points for Z3 Plattendolomit Fm. growth which allowed for linear ridges of carbonate to traverse the Z2 salt lakes and eventually connect with the honeycomb buildups. Deposition in the Mesozoic lead to loading of the Zechstein. Halite-filled Z3 lagoons accommodated this loading, which caused a pinching effect on the Z3 honeycomb buildups. The sedimentological understanding provided by this study not only de-risks frontier exploration but also provides insight into carbonate growth in restricted platform recovery scenarios.

KW - Permian Zechstein

KW - Mid North Sea High

KW - Carbonate buildups

KW - Palaeogeography

KW - Palaeobathymetry

U2 - 10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2024.107116

DO - 10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2024.107116

M3 - Article

SN - 0264-8172

JO - Marine and Petroleum Geology

JF - Marine and Petroleum Geology

ER -

Genesis of honeycomb buildups in the Permian Zechstein Group, Southern North Sea

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Availability Statement

Keywords

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