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Platform-Margin Trajectory as a Control on Syndepositional Fracture Patterns, Canning Basin, Western Australia

¹ John A. and Katherine G. Jackson School of Geosciences, Department of Geological Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, U.S.A.; present address: ConocoPhillips Subsurface Technology, 600 North Dairy Ashford, PR 3060, Houston, Texas 77079, U.S.A.; ned.l.frost{at}conocophillips.com
² John A. and Katherine G. Jackson School of Geosciences, Department of Geological Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, U.S.A.

Syndepositional fractures are an important feature of high-relief, reef-rimmed carbonate systems and exert a profound control on many facets of platform evolution including: the timing and frequency of platform-margin collapse events, generation of an early diagenetic fluid flow system, and subsequent karst and enhanced-permeability development. In the Devonian Reef Complexes of the Canning Basin, syndepositional fracturing increases significantly with progradation, with a twofold increase in fracture intensity observed between the most retrogradational and progradational carbonate platforms. This study demonstrates a statistically significant relationship between syndepositional fracture patterns and variations in stratigraphic architecture, approximated here by platform-margin trajectory. In the platform-margin, syndepositional fracturing varies systematically with platform-margin trajectory, regardless of proximity to regional tectonic elements, whereas in the platform interior, tectonically active settings consistently display syndepositional fracture intensities significantly higher than predicted by platform-margin trajectory alone. The results presented here suggest a first-order relationship between long-term changes in stratigraphic architecture and syndepositional fracture development in high-relief carbonate platforms and imply that whereas external regional tectonic drivers may enhance early fracturing, they are not required.