Seismic sequence stratigrahy of the Xuande Atoll in the Xisha Islands

TheXuande Atoll, a Late Cenozoic carbonate platform, is now the capital of the Sansha city. In order to unravel the architecture of the atoll, we conducted an experiment of high-resolution seismic survey there. Four seismic profiles have been acquired so far. Interpretation suggests that there are five seismic sequences in the region from bottom to top, i.e. SQ1 (Lower Miocene), SQ2 (Middle Miocene), SQ3 (Upper Miocene), SQ4 (Pliocene) and SQ5 (Quaternary), respectively. By correlation to the established stratigtaphic framework, we discussed the characteristics and evolution of the platform in this paper. The seismic experiment has filled the blank of multiple channel seismic imaging, and offered an opportunity for seismic stratigraphic research on isolated carbonate platforms as such in the Xisha Islands.