Foreland Basin - Foreland Basin System

Foreland Basin System

DeCelles & Giles (1996) provide a thorough definition of the foreland basin system. Foreland basin systems comprise three characteristic properties:

1. An elongate region of potential sediment accommodation that forms on continental crust between a contractional orogenic belt and the adjacent craton, mainly in response to geodynamic processes related to subduction and the resulting peripheral or retroarc fold-thrust belt;
2. It consists of four discrete depozones, referred to as the wedge-top, foredeep, forebulge and back-bulge depozones (depositional zones) – which of these depozones a sediment particle occupies depends on its location at the time of deposition, rather than its ultimate geometric relationship with the thrust belt;
3. The longitudinal dimension of the foreland basin system is roughly equal to the length of the fold-thrust belt, and does not include sediment that spills into remnant ocean basins or continental rifts (impactogens).