Glimpses into Earth's history using a revised global sedimentary basin map

Sedimentary basins have been well documented for many years, but their boundaries are often inadequately represented. This study delineated 764 basins using global geologic datasets to create more consistent basin outlines that can be utilized to conduct future global studies. Every sedimentary basin contains an incomplete record of Earth's history, but the study of all of the global basins provides a more complete view of the evolution of the planet as well as a better framework to study the resources within these basins. Additional basin attributes were captured that will aid future research and modeling (name, type, age, area, depth, presence of evaporites, evaporite type, presence of volcanics, etc.).

Most sedimentary basins formed during the breakup of Rodinia, Pannotia, and Pangea (Proterozoic-Cambrian and Mesozoic). Many of the older basins are now situated in the interiors of continents as intracratonic and foreland basins, whereas most of the younger basins are located at the edges of the continents as passive margins, strike-slip, or arc-related basins. The basin type also was found to relate to the maximum sediment thickness with passive margin, foreland, fold and thrust belt, and intracratonic basins often having the thickest sedimentary sequences (>3.0-4.0 km). It was also found that 217 basins contained 369 evaporite intervals and that these sequences were most often located within passive margins and foreland basins, and almost never observed in backarc - marginal sea and forearc basins. Temporally, evaporite deposition was somewhat intermittent throughout Earth's history, but there was widespread deposition during the late Permian and late Triassic intervals with other notable events during the Neoproterozoic-early Cambrian, Aptian-Albian, middle Eocene, and late Miocene (Messinian) time periods. Based on paleogeographic reconstructions, almost all of the 369 evaporite units were deposited within 45 degrees of the equator and were likely influenced by confluence of regional and global factors (e.g., tectonic events, geographical restrictions, and climate).