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(The Karoo Supergroup) in Sw Botswana

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(The Karoo Supergroup) in Sw Botswana Geology, Geophysics & Environment 2013 Vol. 39 No. 1 5569 http://dx.doi.org/10.7494/geol.2013.39.1.55 MODELLING OF DISTRIBUTION AND GEOMETRY OF LITHOLOGICAL COMPLEXES OF THE ECCA GROUP (THE KAROO SUPERGROUP) IN SW BOTSWANA Marek WENDORFF, Lechos³aw RADWAÑSKI & Bartosz PAPIERNIK AGH University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Geology, Geophysics and Environmental Protection; al. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland; e-mail: [email protected] Abstract: The Ecca Group, a subdivision of the Karoo Supergroup (Upper Carboniferous Lower Jurassic) in SW Botswana is a sequence deposited as marine deltaic bodies considered to have been supplied from a cratonic source elevated north of the basin. The Karoo strata in this region are covered unconformably by sands of the Kalahari Beds (Upper Cretaceous Recent). Therefore the bedrock outcrops are extremely rare, limited in size and a low number of boreholes drilled in this vast area (ca. 340 × 540 km) provide the only insights into the succession of the Karoo Supergroup. Very long distances between individual boreholes make correlation, interpolation between localities and interpre- tations of geometry of lithological bodies that would provide clues supporting basin analysis by tradi- tional means problematic. To achieve the first approximation of the space-time relations between litho- logically complex Ecca Group lithofacies associations modelling of these sediments using Petrel soft- ware was performed. These relations in turn suggest evolutionary trends of the basin during deposition of the Ecca Group strata. The model suggests two main zones of supply indicated by two distinctly different patterns of deltaic lithofacies associations, and their evolution controlled by post-Dwyka palaeotopography and its subsequent modifications by local subsidence in the centre of the depository. Initially rapid southward progradation of relatively fine-grained delta body located in the west of the area was followed by subsidence-induced aggradation interrupted by stages of abandonment and marine transgression. Such variations, emphasised by the presence of sandy clinoforms of the delta lobes separated by basinal fines, imply significant interplay between rates of supply and subsidence. On the other hand, the delta formed in the east contains relatively high proportion of coarse-grained sandstone facies overlying prodelta fines as laterally extensive tabular body formed most probably by lateral migration of distributary channels and delta-front mouthbars, and devoid of abandonment stages. Proximal litofacies of the western delta fill the subsiding depocentre and grade distally into synchronously deposited prodelta fines towards the south. By contrast, distal fine-grained prodelta fa- cies fill basin depocentre in the eastern area and are overlain by proximal facies of the eastern delta. Key words: the Karoo Supergroup, the Ecca Group, deltaic sedimentation, modelling, SW Botswana 55 56 M. Wendorff, L. Radwañski & B. Papiernik INTRODUCTION The sedimentary succession of the Karoo Supergroup (Upper Carboniferous Lower Jurassic) present in the western part of the Kalahari Karoo Basin in SW Botswana extends into the Gemsbok Basin to the south and is correlative to the age-equivalent suite in Namibia to the west (Fig. 1). Considering the subdivisions of the Karoo suite occurrences in Botswana in general, the investigated area belongs to the Gemsbok Basin in the west and extends slightly east- ward, into the zone called “Western Central Kalahari” by Smith (1984). The Karoo Super- group in the region is subdivided into five groups: Dwyka, Ecca, Beaufort, Lebung and Stromberg, originally defined in South Africa. These have been correlated at a regional scale mainly on the basis of the lithostratigraphic criteria (Fig. 2). The subject of this paper, the Ecca Group in the western part of Botswana, consists of terrigenous sedimentary rocks ranging from arenites to argillites and coaly beds deposited in the marine basin in which deltas developed fed mainly by fluvial systems draining an elevated source region to the north (Smith 1984, Carney et al. 1994, Key et al. 1998, Modie & Herisse Le 2009, Wendorff et al. 2012). The area of the Gemsbok Basin is vast (ca. 340 × 540 km) and the information on the Karoo succession limited due to the almost continuous cover of the younger sediments. The only direct observations are restricted to just a few fully cored boreholes (Fig. 3). Therefore, an attempt has been undertaken to model the lithological bodies that constitute the Ecca Group succession in SW Botswana in order to reconstruct and visualise their geometries, distribution and lateral interrelations. These aspects should help improve our understanding of evolution of this part of the Karoo depository. The exercise was performed with Petrel software designed for such modelling purposes. GEOLOGICAL SETTING The sedimentary succession of the Karoo Supergroup in southern Africa is divided into five main lithostratigraphic units, which reflect gradual warming of the climate from the ice age up to semi-desert conditions caused by the drift of Gondwana from polar to sub-tropical regions (Meixner & Peart 1984, Smith 1984, Carney et al. 1994, Johnson et al. 1996). In the south (Fig. 1), the sequence of the Main Karoo Basin fills the foreland basin to the Cape Orogen, and the lower part of the succession originated in the marine environ- ment. Further north, the deposition occurred upon the stable Kalahari Craton in mainly con- tinental environments (Meixner & Peart 1984, Smith 1984, Catuneanu et al. 2005). Only in the southern part of the Karoo Kalahari Basin, i.e. in the discussed Gemsbok Basin of SW Botswana, the strata of the lower part of the succession were deposited in the marine environment (Smith 1984, Key et al. 1998, Isbell et al. 2008, Wendorff 2008, Diskin & Wendorff 2011). Modelling of distribution and geometry of lithological complexes of the Ecca Group... 57 Fig. 1. The Main Karoo Basin and the Kalahari Basin of the Karoo Supergroup with the appro- ximate area discussed in this paper marked by cross-hatching (modified from Key et. al. 1998). The areas proposed by Smith (1984) as sub-basins: SWB South-West Botswana, WCK Western Central Kalahari, KA Kweneng Area. Other abbreviations: GB Gemsbok Basin (sub- -basin), AB Aranos Basin (sub-basin) In the southern part of the Karoo Kalahari Basin, the glaciomarine Dwyka Group strata unconformably overlie the Precambrian basement and record Gondwana glaciation during the Late Carboniferous to Earliest Permian (Bordy et al. 2010). The succeeding Ecca Group (Early Permian) is represented by marine deltaic successions and equivalent basinal argillites, and contains interlayers of carbonaceous “fines” and coal. These are overlain by fluvial and lacustrine (?) deposits of the Beaufort Group (Late Permian to Early Triassic). The succeeding Lebung Group of aeolian and fluvial sediments lacking carbonaceous inter- beds and deposited from the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic in warm, semi-desert conditions, 58 M. Wendorff, L. Radwañski & B. Papiernik rests unconformably, and with a hiatus, upon the older Karoo strata (Smith 1984, Bordy et al. 2010). The Stormberg basaltic lavas (Late Jurassic) and intrusions represent the youngest unit of the Karoo Supergroup (Fig. 2). Fig. 2. The Karoo Supergroup stratigraphic subdivisions in SW Botswana (Smith 1984). Corre- lation of the non-carbonaceous units that occur in Botswana above the Ecca Group (the Kule Fm. and Kwetla Fm.) with the Beaufort Group of South Africa is uncertain due to the lack of palaeon- tological evidence (Bordy et al. 2010). Thick line denotes sub-Lebung unconformity (modified from Smith 1984, Bordy et al. 2010). The Ecca Group is here subdivided into three informal sub-units (1, 2, 3) for ease of discussion DATA PREPARATION AND METHODS The Karoo Supergroup succession in the Gemsbok Basin is covered by young sedi- ments of the Kalahari Beds, which results in the Karoo outcrops being extremely rare and limited in size. Therefore, the only sources of data available for the model are detailed sedi- mentological logs of the borehole cores (Fig. 3). Data from a total of ten cores were origi- nally acquired (logged by Wendorff, unpubl.) and interpreted in terms of deltaic facies asso- ciations of the Ecca Group (Wendorff 2008, Diskin & Wendorff 2011, Wendorff, unpubl. data); Modelling of distribution and geometry of lithological complexes of the Ecca Group... 59 nine of these were used in this work, which is sufficient for a preliminary deterministic model presented in this paper. In the remaining borehole the Ecca Group succession is not sufficiently complete to be included in the model. The observational material represented by detailed sedimentological logs had to be unified and simplified for the purpose of modelling. The applied simplification of the litho- logical types and their coding is summarised below. Observed lithology Simplified lithological label sandstone fine and very fine 1 fine sandstone sandstone medium 2 medium sandstone sandstone very coarse to coarse 3 coarse sandstone grey siltstone and mudstone 4 fines black/carbonaceous mudstone and shale 5 black/carbonaceous fines coaly mudstone, shale and coal 6 coal Subsequently, the succession of the rock types recorded in each sedimentological log was discretized with the sampling rate set to 0.5 meter. The discretised logs prepared this way were imported into Petrel where they were correlated according to the lithostratigraphy
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