Ages of Maximum Flooding Surfaces and Revisions of Sequence Boundaries and Their Ages, Cenozoic to Triassic

Walter W. Wornardt Jr.: MICRO-STRAT, Houston, TX

Abstract

The introduction of high resolution biostratigraphy and paleobathymetry into seismic sequence stratigraphy in 1985 (Wornardt and Lamb, 1985 and Lamb et al. 1986, 1987) provided the key data set that permitted seismic sequence stratigraphy to become a practical reality in exploration and development. It permitted the explorationist to age date the maximum flooding surface within each sequence and help divide a stratigraphic section in a well and seismic section into a series of third order depositional sequences and systems tracts in a reasonable amount of time with a high degree of confidence.

The key to recognizing the third order depositional sequences is the maximum flooding surface and the sequence boundary. Maximum flooding surfaces can be age dated in (Ma) because of their association with important chronostratigraphic species within the maximum flooding surface condensed section (Wornardt and Huang, 1986, and Shaffer, 1987). The maximum flooding surfaces, within each third order depositional sequence, are not assigned a numerical age or stage designation on the Global Cycle Chart by Hardenbol et al. (1998). Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to modify and revise the Cenozoic, Cretaceous, and Jurassic maximum flooding surfaces in Ma and to assign a specific numerical age and letter designation to each maximum flooding surfaces from the Jurassic to Recent. These designations can be used as a standard of reference for the maximum flooding surfaces worldwide.