Rifted arch basins and post-breakup rim basins on passive continental margins

In its evolution by plate divergence to a passive continental margin, a continental arch marked by narrow rift valleys (intra-arch basins) and flanked by broad basins (inter- and extra-arch basins) is most likely to break up along a rift valley boundary fault. The resulting dismembered arch at the continental margin is a rim that constitutes the oceanward flank of a rim basin, and the rim basin succeeds one or other of the basins related to the previous arch. In offshore Western Australia, the juxtaposition of Mesozoic reservoir rock at a rift shoulder and source rock of the succeeding rim basin provide a mechanism for concentrating a large gas deposit.