Sequential dip-slip fault movement during rifting: A new model for the evolution of the Jurassic trilete North sea rift system

Controversy has long surrounded the kinematics of faulting in the Middle-Late Jurassic North Sea trilete rift system. Integration of structural styles and subsidence analysis derived from well-constrained seismic interpretation enables a new, unified model to be proposed in which strike-slip was negligible, dip-slip extension predominated throughout the rifting episode and normal faults were active sequentially not synchronously. Extension was initiated on N-S and NNE-SSW trending faults during the Bathonian and Callovian, NE-SW and E-W structures during the Oxfordian and NW-SE faults during the Kimmeridgian and Volgian. The results allow us to speculate that fault activity was driven by variations in the prevailing far-field stress regime that were superimposed upon a trilete junction that formed as consequence of Middle Jurassic thermal doming. Significantly, rotation of the stress field during rifting is similar in other rifts, such as the Afro-Arabian system.