The well LF35-1-1 in the eastern Pearl River Mouth basin （PRMB） of the northern South China Sea revealed unmetamorphosed Middle-Late Jurassic neritic-bathyal sediments and Cretaceous fluvial-lacustrine sediments. Three tectonic movements were identified in Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, late Early Cretaceous, and Late Cretaceous to Paleocene, respectively. The Late Jurassic marine facies mainly contain the hydrocarbon source and reservoir-seal assemblages, providing a main exploration target.
The Baiyun （白云） sag in the southern Pearl River Mouth basin is the largest and deepest sag in deepwater northern South China Sea. Researches and exploration in this sag have revealed many distinct features of the sag. This article reports its Idling history through backstripping of depth data of interpreted sequence boundaries. Maps of sediment rates of 10 sequences from 49 Ma to the present were constructed, showing the spatio-temporal variation of the sediment rate. Three stages of sediment infilling, 49-17.5 Ma, 17.5-10.5 Ma, and 10.5-0 Ma, were divided by abrupt changes of sedimentary patterns. If the breakup of the South China Sea took place at -30 Ma, significant post-breakup acceleration of sedimentation was observed at 17.5-15.5 Ma and 13.8-12.5 Ma, indicating acceleration of subsidence at these times. We propose that the onset of strong post-breakup subsidence at ～17.5 Ma was an important tectonic event that changed the pattern of sedimentation from discrete and medium-rate deposition centers in both main and south subsags to restricted but high-rate deposition in the main subsag. The cause and implications of this newly recognized event need to be investigated.
The newly acquired long-cable multi-channel seismic （MCS） lines were used to study the crustal structure and extension in an NW-SE elongated 150 km by 260 km strip from the slope to the deepsea basin in the northern South China Sea （SCS）. These profiles are of good penetration that Moho is recognizable in -70% length of the lines. Seismostratigraphic interpretation and time-depth conversion were conducted. A power function D = ath ＋ c was used in the time-depth conversion, which avoided the under- or over-estimation of the depths of deep-seated interfaces by cubic or quadratic polynomial functions. Contour maps of basement depth, Moho depth, crustal thickness, and crustal stretching factor were obtained for the study area. In the dip direction, the Mobo depth decreases stepwisely from 28 km in the outer shelf southwards to 19, 15, and 12 km in the deepsea basin, with ramps at the shelf break, lower slope, and the continent ocean boundary （COB）, respectively. Accordingly, the crustal thickness decreased southwards from 25 to 15, 13, and 7 km, respectively. Under the center of the Baiyun （白云） sag, the crust thins significantly to 〈 7 km. The crustal stretching factor βc was calculated by assuming the original crust thickness of 30 km. In the centers of the Baiyun sag, βc exceeds 5. Tertiary and Quaternary volcanic activities show a general trend of intensifying towards the COB. An important finding of this study is the along-strike variation of the crustal structure. A Moho rise extends from the COB NW-ward until the shelf break, about 170 km long and 50-100 km wide, with Moho depth 〈 20 km. This is called the Baiyun Moho Nose, which is bounded to the east, west, and north by belts of high Moho gradients indicative of crustal or even lithospheric faults. The doming of Moho in the nose area might be the cause of the W-E segmentation of the crustal and geological structures along the slope of the northern South China Sea, and the cause of the strong crustal stretching in the Baiyun and Liw
