Abstract:

Yetang Formation of the Upper Cretaceous outcropped widely in the eastern Guangdong Province. It is the salt lake sediment determined with lithology,lithofacies and paleontology-stratigraphy characteristics of the outcrop. This set of sediments can be correlated to the sediments of the upper Cretaceous in well LF35-1-1 in the Chaoshan depression. Both were sedimentary series containing gypsum which formed in the dry-hot environment. Main lithology of both sets of sediments are mudstone,siltstone and sandstone，mudstone and siltstone interbedded with thin gypsum layer or gypsum crystal stock cementation in sandstone. The Chaoshan depression has been a favorable oil-gas exploration area in the Mesozoic basin, and which has good petroleum geological conditions. The salt lake sediment of the Mesozoic in the eastern Guangdong Province has similar sedimentary environment to the Chaoshan depression. The basis for the correlation of the onshore outcrop to the marine Mesozoic formation is the similarity of climate,lithology and lithofacies in two sets of sediments. The correlation of the salt lake sediment of the Mesozoic in the eastern Guangdong Province to the marine formation in Chaoshan depression favors  the preliminary solving the problems which the impossibility of formation outcropped directly observed and the relatively lacking of drilling data during the processing of oil and gas exploration in marine formation. This correlation of two sets of formations can learn from the deposition of the marine research result which has important guiding significance to terrestrial salt lake basin exploration.

Key words: salt lake sediments, Yetang Formation, northern South China Sea, Upper Cretaceous in eastern Guangdong Province, oil and gas exploration