High-resolution sequence stratigraphy of a cretaceous mixed siliciclastic-carbonate platform succession of the Sergipe–Alagoas Basin, NE Brazil

The Sergipe–Alagoas Basin, in northeastern Brazil, has extensive exposures of carbonate rocks that may be studied as analogues to hydrocarbon reservoirs. The outcrops are equivalent to the pre-salt and post-salt reservoirs of the Campos and Santos basins, the most important hydrocarbon exploration targets nowadays in Brazil. Outcrops and well logs of the Riachuelo Formation, the most important for analogue studies of Cretaceous marine carbonate reservoirs of the Campos Basin due to the great variability of facies, are described and interpreted to identify the depositional cycles and stratigraphic sequences. Three unconformities formed during the initial drift phase of the basin are recognized. The depositional setting of the studied section changes from a siliciclastic-dominated continental to shallow-marine mixed siliciclastic-carbonate at the base to a shallow-marine carbonate platform in the upper part. The transgressive–regressive (T–R) sequence model was used for the stratigraphic analysis, leading to a stratigraphic framework of three third-order T–R sequences, with an estimated duration of approximately 2.0, 4.5 and 1.5 Ma, respectively. Consequently, the higher frequency cycles identified in the well logs represent a timing of circa 140,000 years, and are interpreted as fourth-order depositional cycles.