Earth and Environment Atlas

How The Planet Works
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Geological Formations

Pearl River Mouth basin

Sedimentary and Stratigraphic Formations

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

The Pearl River Mouth basin is an extensional sedimentary basin covering about 175,000 square kilometers in the northern South China Sea, near where the Pearl River meets the sea close to Hong Kong. It formed through continental rifting beginning in the Late Cretaceous, followed by seafloor spreading between roughly 32 and 16 million years ago, and its structure holds two depressed areas between three uplift zones running parallel to the spreading axis. The basin is rich in hydrocarbons, particularly in its Baiyun sag, drawing on Eocene age source rock formations within the basin.

Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.