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A Depositional and Sequence Stratigraphic Model for Cold-Water, Spiculitic Strata Based on the Kapp Starostin Formation (Permian) of Spitsbergen and Equivalent Deposits from the Barents Sea

¹ Statoil, N-4035 Stavanger, Norway; sne{at}statoil.com
² Cambridge Carbonates Ltd., Clematis Cottage, 41 Linthurst Newtown, Blackwell, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire B60 1BP, United Kingdom; Department of Earth Sciences, University of Wales, Cardiff CF1 3YE, United Kingdom; Neil_Pickard{at}email.msn.com
³ Statoil, Postboks 40, N-9481, Harstad, Norway; leihe{at}statoil.com
⁴ Statoil, Postboks 40, N-9481, Harstad, Norway; tas{at}statoil.com
⁵ Cambridge Carbonates Ltd., 11 Newcastle Drive, The Park, Nottingham NG7 1AA, United Kingdom; pete{at}CaCO3.demon.co.uk
⁶ Department of Geology and Petroleum Geology, University of Aberdeen, Meston Building, Aberdeen AB24 3UE, United Kingdom; d.macdonald{at}abdn.ac.uk

Steve Ehrenberg has a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. He joined Statoil in 1985, where he does technical service projects in siliciclastic and carbonate petrology. In between there is time for the occasional scientific paper.Neil Pickard has a B.Sc. degree from the University of Bristol and a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. Postdoctoral positions at University College Dublin, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Tromsø, Norway, followed before he became a partner in Cambridge Carbonates Ltd. in 1996. He has specialized in the sedimentology, diagenesis, and reservoir potential of upper Paleozoic carbonate and evaporite sequences and has worked in a variety of basins in Britain and Ireland, Spitsbergen, Barents Sea (Norway and Russia), the southern North Sea, Poland, Italy, and Kazakhstan. He also holds an honorary fellowship at the University of Cardiff, Wales.

Leif Bjørnar Henriksen has a Candidatus Scientiarium degree in geology (1988) from the University of Tromsø, Norway, where his thesis dealt with the sedimentology and diagenesis of the Kapp Starostin Formation. He has been exploring the shelf off northern Norway for 13 years, focusing on the late Paleozoic interval. He joined Statoil in 1996.

Tore Svånå received his Candidatus Scientiarium degree in geology at the University of Oslo, Norway, in 1984. He began his professional career as a well-site/operations geologist, first at Norsk Hydro and thereafter at Statoil. He has worked mainly on Barents Sea exploration, with particular emphasis on upper Paleozoic carbonates, and is presently working on Mideast carbonate reservoirs.

Peter Gutteridge has a Ph.D. from the University of Manchester, United Kingdom. He worked on North Sea exploration and well-site geology for a short time with Britoil and then joined Thames Polytechnic in 1985, researching Dinantian carbonate platform evolution and basin development in the United Kingdom. In 1992 Peter cofounded Cambridge Carbonates Ltd. to work on problems in carbonate exploration and production worldwide.

David Macdonald has a B.Sc. degree from the University of Glasgow and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. He has had a varied career in industry (BP), government science (senior sedimentologist, British Antarctic Survey until 1993), and academia. He was director of the Cambridge Arctic Shelf Programme (University of Cambridge) from 1993 to 1999 and is currently a professor of petroleum geology at the University of Aberdeen. Most of his research is at the industry-academia interface and concerns the effects of continental-scale tectonics on the filling history of sedimentary basins.

This article summarizes the lithostratigraphy of two sections through the Kapp Starostin Formation on Spitsbergen having contrasting distal and proximal depositional settings. These outcrop sections are compared with an approximately age-equivalent spiculitic unit penetrated in two exploration wells 800 km to the southeast on the Finnmark Platform. Eight main facies associations comprise these strata, including limestones (matrix-rich, matrix-poor, and mudstone), siliciclastics (shale and sandstone), spiculite (dark/tight and light-colored/porous), and phosphatized surfaces. A sequence stratigraphic model is proposed wherein siliciclastic-limestone intervals represent lowstands of relative sea level, and the spiculites are mainly highstand deposits. Based on this model, seven depositional cycles (sequences) are recognized in the distal, high-accommodation locality on Spitsbergen (Akseløya), four in the proximal locality (Dickson Land), and two on the Finnmark Platform. A speculative model for correlation between these localities is presented, wherein lateral amalgamation of sequences, due to landward pinch-out of some lowstand intervals, results in recognition of fewer sequences in areas of lower accommodation. On both Dickson Land and the Finnmark Platform, an upward change in spiculite lithology from dark/tight to light/porous is shown, and Dickson Land also shows an upward change in siliciclastic lithology from shale to glauconitic sandstone. These changes record a long-term shoaling trend approaching the Permian-Triassic boundary. This model provides a basis for interpreting the basin-scale distribution of lithofacies and predicting the occurrence of porous zones representing potential hydrocarbon reservoirs.