Journal
GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA BULLETIN
Volume 122, Issue 7-8, Pages 1081-1093Publisher
GEOLOGICAL SOC AMER, INC
DOI: 10.1130/B30067.1
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Funding
- Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy [DE-FG02-03ER15430]
- Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas
- Fracture Research & Application Consortium
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Quartz cement bridges across opening-mode fractures of the Cretaceous Travis Peak Formation provide a textural and fluid inclusion record of incremental fracture opening during the burial evolution of this low-porosity sandstone. Incremental crack-seal fracture opening is inferred based on the banded structure of quartz cement bridges, consisting of up to 700 cement bands averaging similar to 5 mu m in thickness as observed with scanning electron microscope-cathodoluminescence. Crack-seal layers contain assemblages of aqueous two-phase fluid inclusions. Based on fluid inclusion microthermometry and Raman microprobe analyses, we determined that these inclusions contain methane-saturated brine trapped over temperatures ranging from similar to 130 degrees C to similar to 154 degrees C. Using textural crosscutting relations of quartz growth increments to infer the sequence of cement growth, we reconstructed the fluid temperature and pore-fluid pressure evolution during fracture opening. In combination with published burial evolution models, this reconstruction indicates that fracture opening started at ca. 48 Ma and above-hydrostatic pore-fluid pressure conditions, and continued under steadily declining pore-fluid pressure during partial exhumation until present times. Individual fractures opened over an similar to 48 m.y. time span at rates of 16-23 mu m/m.y. These rates suggest that fractures can remain hydraulically active over geologically long times in deep basinal settings.
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