STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE NORTHERN NORTH SEA

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Abstract
The Northern North Sea basin is a relatively narrow, grabenal or half‐grabenal, northsouth trending feature. The trapping structures are tilted fault blocks. In the southern part of the basin these are mainly westwards tilted blocks formed by down to the east throw faults trending north‐south, parallel to the basin margins. This could fit with general plate tectonic theory, but in the northern part of the area this faulting is complicated by a pronounced NE‐SW trend. This is parallel to the old Caledonian trend and it is postulated that strike‐slip faulting may have been reactivated during the Mesozoic. This strike‐slip movement on the NE‐SW fault trend gave a tendency for individual fault block rotation resulting in a variety of block tilt directions in the northern part of the basin.The overall half‐graben feature probably started forming in early Triassic, but the faulting leading to the individual fault block formation mainly started during the Middle Jurassic, continuing through the Upper Jurassic. A further period of fault movement occurred during the Upper Cretaceous, but this is not associated with any tilt.

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