Albina Gilmullina

Cretaceous source to sink system on the Norwegian Continental Shelf

Albina Gilmullina

The several kilometers thick succession of Cretaceous strata on the Norwegian Continental Shelf bears witness to a period characterised by contemporaneous hinterland uplift, basin subsidence and high sedimentation rates. The northern part of the NCS – informally referred to as the Greater Barents Sea Basin (GBSB) – represented an epicontinental sea dominated by mud-dominated clinoforms exhibiting a wide range of progradational directions. Multiple source areas have thus been suggested based on paleocurrent measurements onshore Svalbard, seismic mapping, petrological analyses, as well as limited provenance data. Although the Lower Cretaceous succession has received considerable attention, Upper Cretaceous strata, which is severely eroded across much of the area, is under-explored. Therefore, volumetric calculations and an in-depth understanding of provenance variations for the whole Cretaceous succession of the GBSB are currently lacking.
In this study, we use >3500 2D seismic lines over the area of 1.500.000 km2 to map Cretaceous sequences from the Eastern and Western Barents Sea and calculate sediment input rates (megatons/year) for eight different seismic units spanning from the Valanginian to the Campanian. We provide new detrital zircon dates from the Lower Cretaceous succession onshore Svalbard. Collectively, this provides insights into sediment volumes, provenance and sediment supply variations during the Cretaceous in the GBSB.