Issues

ON COVER – Cliff section forming the eastern wall of Tynemouth Priory, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, northeastern England. The section exposes onshore equivalents to the upper Paleozoic (Carboniferous and Permian) sediments that form the main reservoir targets buried beneath offshore waters of the Southern North Sea. The lower part of the cliff face consists of channelized fluvio-deltaic sediments of Pennsylvanian age. The middle part of the section comprises aeolian dunes termed the Yellow Sands that are lateral equivalents to the Permian (Rotliegend Group) Leman Sandstone Formation that housed the majority of gas reserves and now forms a target for carbon capture, utilization, and storage. Permian (Zechstein Group) carbonates, upper part of the section, the depositional (basinal) evaporitic equivalents of which form the main regional seal for the petroleum system and the carbon storage opportunity describedbydeJonge-Anderson et al., p. 1827 of this issue of the Bulletin. The wave cut platform is also cut by a Cenozoic igneous dyke, the intrusion of which introduced carbon dioxide and other contaminants in the subsurface reservoirs in the Anglo-Polish Basin. Photograph taken by John Underhill.