Ground penetrating radar for facies architecture and high-resolution stratigraphy: Examples from the Mesoproterozoic in the Chapada Diamantina Basin, Brazil

摘要

Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) surveys were conducted on Mesoproterozoic eolian, fluvial, deltaic, estuarine, and shallow marine successions in the Chapada Diamantina Basin. The subsurface continuation of facies and facies architecture exposed on road cuts was imaged using the GPR signal of a 400-MHz antenna penetrating 8 m in depth, even with mudstone intervals. Reflection patterns in the GPR profiles that were compared with photo mosaics of outcrops and supporting data from vertical sections and gamma ray logs, reveal sedimentary, stratigraphic, and structural features, such as sedimentary structures, the external geometry of architectural elements, stratigraphic surfaces, folds and tension gashes. The patterns most likely reflect the response from low-weathered, non-porous muscovite-illite-rich mudstone and quartzarenite sandstone in which authigenic and detrital illite and sericite are prevalent clay minerals.