Virtual field trips
Available Field Trips
Outcrop-based analogs are an efficient tool for people working in seismic interpretation, in oil and gaz industry. In the field, several geological objects, that are under the scale of the resolution of seismic can be studied in details. Therefore, detailed analog studies on the field could provide important additional information, helping to interpret other areas with similar geological settings.
Bakio diapir
The Bakio area and its Albian exposures provide an excellent analogue for diapir-related reservoirs like in the Gulf of Mexico, the offshore of Angola or Brazil. In details the Bakio area provides exellent opportunities to study on the field :
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-well exposed tapered and tabular halokinetic sequences and their associated unconformities, as described by Giles and Lawton (2002) and Giles and Rowan (2012) in the La Popa basin,
-well exposed slumped structures in 3D, that document slope failure from the diapir roof,
-analogues for carbonate breccia reservoirs, that onlapped on the Bakio diapir and that have been subsequently drape folded by the diapir flank rotation,
-and analogues for sand-rich channel-lobe turbidite reservoirs (optional), that deposited in mini-basins adjacent to the Bakio diapir.
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This field trip is partially based on the data from Poprawski et al. (2014, 2016), runs over 2 or 3 days depending on the tide schedule and includes the study of the sand-rich channel-lobe turbidite reservoirs (see the following pdf, photographs).
Poprawski, Y., Basile, C., Jaillard, E., Gaudin, M., Lopez, M. (2016). Halokinetic sequences in carbonate systems: An example from the Middle Albian Bakio Breccias Formation (Basque Country, Spain). Sedimentary Geology, 334, 34-52. DOI: 10.1016/j.sedgeo.2016.01.013.
Poprawski, Y., Basile, C., Agirrezabala, L., Jaillard, E., Gaudin, M., Jacquin, T. (2014). Sedimentary and structural record of the Albian growth of the Bakio salt diapir (the Basque Country, northern Spain). Basin Research. 26, 746-766. DOI: 10.1111/bre.12062.
Triassic red-clays and gypsum
Clast-supported carbonate breccias
Sand-rich channel-lobe transition turbidites
View of the western flank of the Bakio diapir showing a tapered halokinetic geometries
Other interesting optional exposures may be included in a longer field trip with:
-a 10 meter thick slumped level that may be followed over 3 kilometers across the basin, associated with a mafic lava flow with pillow lavas (possibly time equivalent of the Bakio diapir growth).
-other salt exposures in contact with other Albian units and with Middle Cenomanian to Early Campanian units, suggesting that the salt reached the sea-floor at different periods depending on the area in the salt-controlled basin,
-Albian carbonate platform and shoreface sandstones facies in the inverted shallow-marine margin (same age than the deep-water deposits in mini-basin adjacent to the Bakio diapir)
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10 meter thick slumped level in the Late Albian mud-rich turbidites and located above a mafic lava flow with pillow lavas