- journal_title：Geological Society of America Bulletin
- Contributor：S.P. Becker ; P. Eichhubl ; S.E. Laubach ; R.M. Reed ; R.H. Lander ; R.J. Bodnar
- Publisher：Geological Society of America
- Date：2010-
- Format：text/html
- Language：en
- Identifier：10.1130/B30067.1
- journal_abbrev：Geological Society of America Bulletin
- issn：0016-7606
- volume：122
- issue：7-8
- firstpage：1081
- section：STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY
Quartz cement bridges across opening-mode fractures of the Cretaceous Travis Peak Formation provide a textural and fluid inclusion record of incremental fracture opening during the burial evolution of this low-porosity sandstone. Incremental crack-seal fracture opening is inferred based on the banded structure of quartz cement bridges, consisting of up to 700 cement bands averaging ∼5 μm in thickness as observed with scanning electron microscope–cathodoluminescence. Crack-seal layers contain assemblages of aqueous two-phase fluid inclusions. Based on fluid inclusion microthermometry and Raman microprobe analyses, we determined that these inclusions contain methane-saturated brine trapped over temperatures ranging from ∼130°C to ∼154°C. Using textural crosscutting relations of quartz growth increments to infer the sequence of cement growth, we reconstructed the fluid temperature and pore-fluid pressure evolution during fracture opening. In combination with published burial evolution models, this reconstruction indicates that fracture opening started at ca. 48 Ma and above-hydrostatic pore-fluid pressure conditions, and continued under steadily declining pore-fluid pressure during partial exhumation until present times. Individual fractures opened over an ∼48 m.y. time span at rates of 16–23 μm/m.y. These rates suggest that fractures can remain hydraulically active over geologically long times in deep basinal settings.