Highlights: Marginal Evaporites

Although the sequence stratigraphic setting of saline giant evaporite systems is well-known, less clear is the context of extensive basin-margin systems. In this paper, Clement and Holland examine an extensive basin-margin evaporite system, the Middle Jurassic Gypsum Spring Formation of northern Wyoming. The Gypsum Spring Formation contains three depositional sequences, with evaporites within facies that were deposited in coastal salinas and sabkhas, as well as extensive desert mudflats, in the TST and HST of individual sequences. Given their vast extent, and lack of evidence for diachroneity, these regionally expansive evaporites are interpreted to be sourced by continental rather than marine brines. These results provide analogs for evaporite resources or laterally continuous seals of hydrocarbon reservoirs.

Sequence stratigraphic context of extensive basin-margin evaporites: Middle Jurassic Gypsum Spring Formation, Wyoming, U.S.A. by Annaka M. Clement and Steven M. Holland