3D seismic images of a low-sinuosity slope channel and related depositional lobe (West Africa deep-offshore)

In this paper a channel levee system and the associated depositional lobe are described. The proposed example derives from a recently acquired 3D survey in the West Africa deep-offshore. It is mainly based on a detailed 3D seismic reconstruction, attribute map interpretation and log data from a single well to calibrate seismic responses and sedimentary facies. The stratigraphic section under consideration, informally named the A 100 Sequence, is about 80 ms TWT thick, and of early Pliocene age. The attribute maps focused on this interval clearly show the presence of two narrow (up to 250 m wide) low-sinuosity slope channels that can be followed for more than 32 km in an E-W direction (down slope to the W) as far as the western border of the 3D acquisition. Over most of their length both channels are characterized by the low amplitude aspect of the axial belt and by brighter responses in the flanks (presence of thin-bedded sands in the levee areas). This character, associated with the common convex-down geometry of the reflections lying just above the channel axis, suggests a predominant fine-grained infilling of the thalwegs. One of these channels, termed the Southern Channel, shows a high amplitude lobe-shaped zone in the middle part of its course. The anomalous' development of this depositional element has been related to a local reduction of the slope gradient, probably induced by the synsedimentary growth of an adjacent mud-cored anticline. Because of hydrocarbon occurrence, the lobe area and the associated feeder channel have been investigated in detail through careful picking of all the mappable reflections inside the channel-lobe system. The resulting physical-stratigraphic framework and the related attribute maps suggest that channel development occurred through distinct growth stages. The lower stage (Stage 1) is expressed by symmetric levees flanking the main channel to the east and by a depositional lobe/lobe fringe area to the west. Between the levee belt and the lobe' a transitional zone occurs where the presence of isolated bypassing bars has been inferred. The upper stage (Stage 2) seems to record a phase of overall bypassing of flows within the channel conduit, producing the westward propagation of the channel and consequent dissection of the previous stage lobe. A contemporaneous lateral spillover from the channel axis of low-density turbidites constructed prominent gull-wing shaped levees that uniformly covered the stage I elements. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All fights reserved.