Use of backstripping in the Triassic–Middle Jurassic, south-central Barents Sea shelf succession to understand regional tectonic mechanisms and structural responses

Because of its economic importance for hydrocarbon development, the tectonostratigraphic development of the Triassic–Middle Jurassic succession across the Barents Sea shelf (BSS) has been of particular interest. Much of this succession was deposited across Timanian (late Neoproterozoic–early Cambrian) to Caledonian (at least Devonian)-age structural elements that were later reactivated by far-field responses to periods of Uralian–Pai–Khoi–Novaya Zemlya and North Atlantic tectonism. The timing and nature of these far-field responses are analyzed in this study by applying the backstripping method for analysis of tectonic mechanisms and structural responses, based on stratigraphic thicknesses across multiple south-central BSS structural elements. Based on ten tectonic subsidence curves from these structural elements generated by backstripping calculations, it is suggested that structural reactivation occurred at various times during latest Permian to Middle Jurassic time. The many tectonic mechanisms interpreted in several BSS backstripping curves suggest that the mechanisms were not homogeneous and that the stress regimes under which these structures reactivated were diverse. The backstripping analysis also shows that among the majority of structural elements analyzed, subsidence predominated across the southern BSS during Early–Middle Triassic time, followed largely by uplift in Late Triassic time, and subsequently, by subsidence in Jurassic time. Tectonostratigraphic interpretations extracted from the backstripping curves suggest that regional structural reactivation generated by Novaya Zemlya compressional tectonism was significant during at least Late Triassic–Early Jurassic time.