Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Belopolsky, A. Articles by Droxler, A. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

Imaging Tertiary carbonate system—the Maldives, Indian Ocean

Insights into carbonate sequence interpretation

BP America, Houston, Texas, U.S.

André Droxler

Rice University, Houston, Texas, U.S.

Corresponding author: belopoav@bp.com

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Seismic imaging of carbonate systems is often more complicated than their siliciclastic counterparts. Carbonates sediments typically get cemented very early, and their seismic velocities are normally faster than those of siliciclastic sediments. This reduces the resolution of carbonates in comparison to the clastics when using identical acquisition design. Carbonates are also easily dissoved which may lead to karsting, a phenomenon unique to carbonate rocks. Karst surfaces commonly form highly irregular topography that causes energy dispersion, and makes it difficult to image the sediments or rocks below it.

Our understanding and interpretation of seismic data depend on the ability to correctly image major surfaces and packages. Interpretation is often driven by comparisons to the better studied examples, or analogs. The Tertiary carbonate system of the Maldives provides an excellent example of a well-imaged carbonate megaplatform, and the learning from this study may be applied to aid the interpretation of other carbonate systems.

	The Maldives carbonate system

 
The Maldives archipelago is an 800-km long chain of atolls in the equatorial Indian Ocean (Figure 1). These modern-day atolls that barely rise above sea level are only the uppermost part of the over-3-km-thick carbonate megasystem that has existed since the early Eocene. Distanced from landmasses during its entire 50-million-year history, the Maldives have been removed from terrigenous input and are composed almost entirely of carbonate sediments.

View larger version (26K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Figure 1. Map and bathymetry of the Maldives Archipelago, central Equatorial Indian Ocean. Black areas represent atoll islands, gray areas represent atoll lagoons. The shallow Inner Sea (water depths do not exceed 500 m) separates the double chain of atolls in the center of archipelago.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				V. Zampetti, W. Schlager, J.-H. van Konijnenburg, and A.-J. Everts 3-D Seismic Characterization of Submarine Landslides on a Miocene Carbonate Platform (Luconia Province, Malaysia) Journal of Sedimentary Research, November 1, 2004; 74(6): 817 - 830. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]