The control of syndepositional faulting on the Eogene sedimentary basin fills of the Dongying and Zhanhua sags, Bohai Bay Basin

The Dongying and Zhanhua sags are the major hydrocarbon exploration and production subbasins in the Bohai Bay Basin. Integrated analysis of the sedimentary basin fills has shown that the syndepositional faults and their arrangement styles exerted an important influence on the development and distribution of the Eogene depositional systems. The sedimentary filling evolution of the subbasins reflects the general control of the episodic rifting process. The major long-term active normal faults formed a series of paleogeomorphic accident or slopebreak zones that commonly delineated the subsidiary palaeostructural units and the depositional facies tracts and constrained the general distribution of sedimentary facies zones. The central sag boundary fault slopebreak zones usually determined the distribution of the depocenters of terrestrial clastic depositional systems, particularly the lowstand fans or deltaic depositional systems, and have proven to be the economically important targets for the exploration of subtle sandstone reservoirs. A variety of syndepositional fault arrangement patterns, including the parallel, en echelon, combo-like, broom-like fault systems and the fault overlap or transfer zones, have been recognized in the subbasins. They generated distinctive geomorphic features and exerted a direct influence on sediment dispersal and sandbody distribution during the Eogene synrift stage. It is the key for the prediction of depositional systems tracts and reservoir sandstones to investigate the activity and distribution of the fault slopebreak zones and reconstruct the structural paleogeomorphy in different basin filling stages of the basin evolution.