Abstract The Lisburne Group (Carboniferous-Permian) consists of a carbonate platform that extends for >1000 km across northern Alaska, and diverse margin, slope, and basin facies that contain world-class deposits of Zn and Ba, notable phosphorites, and petroleum source rocks. Lithologic, paleontologic, isotopic, geochemical, and seismic data gathered from outcrop and subsurface studies during the past 20 years allow us to delineate the distribution, composition, and age of the off-platform facies, and to better understand the physical and chemical conditions under which they formed. The southern edge of the Lisburne platform changed from a gently sloping, homoclinal ramp in the east to a tectonically complex, distally steepened margin in the west that was partly bisected by the extensional Kuna Basin (~200 by 600 km). Carbonate turbidites, black mudrocks, and radiolarian chert accumulated in this basin; turbidites were generated mainly during times of eustatic rise in the late Early and middle Late Mississippian. Interbedded black mudrocks (up to 20 wt% total organic carbon), granular and nodular phosphorite (up to 37 wt% P 2 O 5 ), and fine-grained limestone rich in radiolarians and sponge spicules formed along basin margins during the middle Late Mississippian in response to a nutrient-rich, upwelling regime. Detrital zircons from a turbidite sample in the western Kuna Basin have mainly Neoproterozoic through early Paleozoic U-Pb ages (~900-400 Ma), with subordinate populations of Mesoproterozoic and late Paleoproterozoic grains. This age distribution is similar to that found in slightly older rocks along the northern and western margins of the basin. It also resembles age distributions reported from Carboniferous and older strata elsewhere in northwestern Alaska and on Wrangel Island. Geochemical and isotopic data indicate that suboxic, denitrifying conditions prevailed in the Kuna Basin and along its margins. High V/Mo, Cr/Mo, and Re/Mo ratios (all marine fractions [MF]) and low MnO contents (<0.01 wt%) characterize Lisburne black mudrocks. Low Qmf/Vmf ratios (mostly 0.8-4.0) suggest moderately to strongly denitrifying conditions in suboxic bottom waters during siliciclastic and phosphorite sedimentation. Elevated to high Mo contents (31-135 ppm) in some samples are consistent with seasonal to intermittent sulfidic conditions in bottom waters, developed mainly along the basin margin. High d 15 N values (6-120) imply that the waters supplying nutrients to primary producers in the photic zone had a history of denitrification either in the water column or in underlying sediments. Demise of the Lisburne platform was diachronous and reflects tectonic, eustatic, and environmental drivers. Southwestern, south-central, and northwestern parts of the platform drowned during the Late Mississippian, coincident with Zn and Ba metallogenesis within the Kuna Basin and phosphogenesis along basin margins. This drowning was temporary (except in the southwest) and likely due to eutrophication associated with upwelling and sea-level rise enhanced by regional extension, which allowed suboxic, denitrifying waters to form on platform margins. Final drowning in the southcentral area occurred in the Early Pennsylvanian and also may have been linked to regional extension. In the northwest, platform sedimentation persisted into the Permian; its demise there appears to have been due to increased siliciclastic input. Climatic cooling may have produced additional stress on parts of the Lisburne platform biota during Pennsylvanian and Permian times.

Abstract Seismic interpretation and various modeling techniques, including structural modeling, fault-seal analysis, and petroleum systems modeling, have been combined to conduct an integrated study along a tectonically complex compressional cross section in the Brooks Range foothills of the Alaska North Slope. In the first approach, relatively simple models have been developed to show the interaction and codependency of various parameters such as changing geometry over time in a compressional regime, character and timing of faults with respect to sealing or nonsealing quality, thermal and maturity evolution of the study area, as well as petroleum generation, migration, and accumulation over time, with respect to the geometry changes and the fault properties. Modeling results show that a comprehensive understanding of all aspects involved in basin evolution is crucial to understand the petroleum systems, to be able to reproduce what is observed in the field, and to ultimately predict what can be expected from a prospect area. This integrated approach allows a better understanding of the complex petroleum systems of the Brooks Range foothills.

Abstract The Eurasia Basin petroleum province comprises the younger, eastern half of the Arctic Ocean, including the Cenozoic Eurasia Basin and the outboard part of the continental margin of northern Europe. For the USGS petroleum assessment (CARA), it was divided into four assessment units (AUs): the Lena Prodelta AU, consisting of the deep-marine part of the Lena Delta; the Nansen Basin Margin AU, comprising the passive margin sequence of the Eurasian plate; and the Amundsen Basin and Nansen Basin AUs which encompass the abyssal plains north and south of the Gakkel Ridge spreading centre, respectively. The primary petroleum system thought to be present is sourced in c . 50–44 Ma (Early to Middle Eocene) condensed pelagic deposits that could be widespread in the province. Mean estimates of undiscovered, technically recoverable petroleum resources include <1 billion barrels of oil (BBO) and about 1.4 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of nonassociated gas in Lena Prodelta AU, and <0.4 BBO and 3.4 TCF nonassociated gas in the Nansen Basin Margin AU. The Nansen Basin and Amundsen Basin AUs were not quantitatively assessed because they have less than 10% probability of containing at least one accumulation of 50 MMBOE (million barrels of oil equivalent).

Abstract The Lomonosov microcontinent is an elongated continental fragment that transects the Arctic Ocean between North America and Siberia via the North Pole. Although it lies beneath polar pack ice, the geological framework of the microcontinent is inferred from sparse seismic reflection data, a few cores, potential field data and the geology of its conjugate margin in the Barents–Kara Shelf. Petroleum systems inferred to be potentially active are comparable to those sourced by condensed Triassic and Jurassic marine shale of the Barents Platform and by condensed Jurassic and (or) Cretaceous shale probably present in the adjacent Amerasia Basin. Cenozoic deposits are known to contain rich petroleum source rocks but are too thermally immature to have generated petroleum. For the 2008 USGS Circum Arctic Resource Appraisal (CARA), the microcontinent was divided into shelf and slope assessment units (AUs) at the tectonic hinge line along the Amerasia Basin margin. A low to moderate probability of accumulation in the slope AU yielded fully risked mean estimates of 123 MMBO oil and 740 BCF gas. For the shelf AU, no quantitative assessment was made because the probability of petroleum accumulations of the 50 MMBOE minimum size was estimated to be less than 10% owing to rift-related uplift, erosion and faulting.

Abstract A total of 143 sedimentary successions that contain, or may be prospective for, hydrocarbons were identified in the Arctic Region north of 58–64°N and mapped in four quadrants at a scale of 1:11 000 000. Eighteen of these successions (12.6%) occur in the Arctic Ocean Basin, 25 (17.5%) in the passive and sheared continental margins of the Arctic Basin and 100 (70.0%) on the Circum-Arctic continents of which one (<1%) lies in the active margin of the Pacific Rim. Each succession was assigned to one of 13 tectono-stratigraphic and morphologic classes and coloured accordingly on the map. The thickness of each succession and that of any underlying sedimentary section down to economic basement, where known, are shown on the map by isopachs. Major structural or tectonic features associated with the creation of the successions, or with the enhancement or degradation of their hydrocarbon potential, are also shown. Forty-four (30.8%) of the successions are known to contain hydrocarbon accumulations, 64 (44.8%) are sufficiently thick to have generated hydrocarbons and 35 (24.5%) may be too thin to be prospective.

Abstract The US Geological Survey recently assessed the potential for undiscovered conventional petroleum in the Arctic. Using a new map compilation of sedimentary elements, the area north of the Arctic Circle was subdivided into 70 assessment units, 48 of which were quantitatively assessed. The Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal (CARA) was a geologically based, probabilistic study that relied mainly on burial history analysis and analogue modelling to estimate sizes and numbers of undiscovered oil and gas accumulations. The results of the CARA suggest the Arctic is gas-prone with an estimated 770–2990 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered conventional natural gas, most of which is in Russian territory. On an energy-equivalent basis, the quantity of natural gas is more than three times the quantity of oil and the largest undiscovered gas field is expected to be about 10 times the size of the largest undiscovered oil field. In addition to gas, the gas accumulations may contain an estimated 39 billion barrels of liquids. The South Kara Sea is the most prospective gas assessment unit, but giant gas fields containing more than 6 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas are possible at a 50% chance in 10 assessment units. Sixty per cent of the estimated undiscovered oil resource is in just six assessment units, of which the Alaska Platform, with 31% of the resource, is the most prospective. Overall, the Arctic is estimated to contain between 44 and 157 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Billion barrel oil fields are possible at a 50% chance in seven assessment units. Undiscovered oil resources could be significant to the Arctic nations, but are probably not sufficient to shift the world oil balance away from the Middle East.

Our investigations in Alaska and Russia show that the curved orogen of the Bering Strait region is a composite feature that formed as a result of multiple superimposed events and cannot be related to latest Cretaceous–early Tertiary east-west shortening. Relations interpreted to record east-west shortening include the Chukchi syntaxis, deformation on Seward and Chukotka Peninsulas, the map pattern of Triassic-Jurassic mafic rocks, and plate reconstructions. These relations are reviewed in light of new data and show that the curved orogen cannot have been formed by east-west shortening. For example, the Chukchi syntaxis, the northeastern limb of the orogen, is a primary structural loop that originated during the Brookian orogeny in the Early Cretaceous and therefore predates postulated oroclinal bending. East-west shortening on Seward Peninsula and Chukotka is manifest by low-amplitude, long-wavelength folds that require only small strains. The Seward Peninsula/Yukon-Koyukuk province boundary was previously interpreted as a thrust fault, but it instead may be a left-lateral strike-slip fault. Triassic-Jurassic mafic rocks similar to the Angayucham terrane are found on the northern Chukotka Peninsula, but a better correlation is with rocks farther south in the South Anyui suture zone, resulting in a less-arcuate pattern. Mid-Cretaceous north-south extension in the Bering Strait region has enhanced the curvature of the margin. Recent plate reconstructions indicate that shortening between Eurasia and North America was previously overestimated and that significant east-west convergence probably did not occur in the region during the Tertiary. We conclude that the curved orogen in the Bering Strait region is not a true orocline and instead is a composite structural feature that is best described as a salient.

Abstract The Brooks Range is a north-directed fold and thrust belt that forms the southern boundary of the North Slope petroleum province in northern Alaska. Field-based studies have long recognized that large-magnitude, thin-skinned folding and thrusting in the Brooks Range occurred during arc-continent collision in the Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous (Neocomian). Folds and thrusts, however, also deform middle and Upper Cretaceous strata of the Colville foreland basin and thus record a younger phase of deformation that apatite fission-track data have shown to occur primarily during the early Tertiary (~60 and ~45 Ma). A structural and kinematic model that reconciles these observations is critical to understanding the petroleum system of the Brooks Range fold and thrust belt. New interpretations of outcrop and regional seismic reflection data indicate that from the modern mountain front northward to near the deformation front under the coastal plain, the basal thrust detachment for the orogen is located in the Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous Kingak Shale in the upper part of the regionally extensive, gently south-dipping, north-derived Mississippian to Early Cretaceous Ellesmerian sequence. The frontal part of the orogen lies in middle Cretaceous foreland basin strata and consists of a thin-skinned fold belt at the deformation front and a fully developed passive-roof duplex to the south. Near the mountain front, the orogen is composed of a stacked series of allochthons and thrust duplexes and associated Neocomian syntectonic deposits that are unconformably overlain by proximal foreland basin strata. The foreland basin strata and underlying deformed rocks are truncated by a younger generation of folds and thrusts. Vitrinite reflectance and stable isotope compositions of veins provide evidence of two fluid events in these rocks, including an earlier higher temperature (~250–300°C) event that was buffered by limestone and a younger, lower temperature (~150°C) event that had distinctly lower δ 13 C values as a result of oxidation of organic matter and/or methane. Zircon fission-track data from the host rocks of the veins show that the higher temperature fluid event occurred at 160–120 Ma, whereas the lower temperature event probably occurred at about 60–45 Ma. It is proposed that the Brooks Range consists of two superposed contractional orogens that used many of the same mechanically incompetent stratigraphic units (e.g., Kayak Shale, Kingak Shale) as sites of thrust detachment. The older orogen formed in a north-directed arc-continent collisional zone that was active from 160 to 120 Ma. This deformation produced a thin-skinned deformational wedge that is characterized by fartraveled allochthons with relatively low structural relief, because it involved a thin (1–4-km [0.6–2.5-mi]-thick) stratigraphic section. Deeper parts of the deformational wedge are envisioned to have contained relatively high-temperature fluids that presumably migrated from or through limestone-rich source areas in the underlying autochthon or from deeper parts of the orogen. The younger orogen, which formed initially at about 60 Ma and reactivated at 45 Ma, produced a thrust belt and frontal triangle zone with low amounts of shortening and relatively high structural relief, because it involved a structural section 5–10 km (3–6 mi) thick. Fluids associated with this deformation were relatively of lower temperature and suggest that hydrocarbon migration occurred at this time. We conclude that hydrocarbon generation from Triassic and Jurassic source strata and migration into stratigraphic traps occurred primarily by sedimentary burial principally at 100–90 Ma, between the times of the two major episodes of deformation. Subsequent sedimentary burial caused deep stratigraphic traps to become overmature, cracking oil to gas, and initiated some new hydrocarbon generation progressively higher in the section. Structural disruption of the traps in the early Tertiary released sequestered hydrocarbons. The hydrocarbons remigrated into newly formed structural traps, which formed at higher structural levels or were lost to the surface. Because of the generally high maturation of the Colville basin at the time of the deformation and remigration, most of the hydrocarbons available to fill traps were gas.

Abstract Beneath the Arctic coastal plain (commonly referred to as "the 1002 area") in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, northeastern Alaska, United States, seismic reflection data show that the northernmost and youngest part of the Brookian orogen is preserved as a Paleogene to Neogene system of blind and buried thrust-related structures. These structures involve Proterozoic to Miocene (and younger?) rocks that contain several potential petroleum reservoir facies. Thermal maturity data indicate that the deformed rocks are mature to overmature with respect to hydrocarbon generation. Oil seeps and stains in outcrops and shows in nearby wells indicate that oil has migrated through the region; geochemical studies have identified three potential petroleum systems. Hydrocarbons that were generated from Mesozoic source rocks in the deformed belt were apparently expelled and migrated northward in the Paleogene, before much of the deformation in this part of the orogen. It is also possible that Neogene petroleum, which was generated in Tertiary rocks offshore in the Arctic Ocean, migrated southward into Neogene structural traps at the thrust front. However, the hydrocarbon resource potential of this largely unexplored region of Alaska’s North Slope remains poorly known. In the western part of the 1002 area, the dominant style of thin-skinned thrusting is that of a passive-roof duplex, bounded below by a detachment (floor thrust) near the base of Lower Cretaceous and younger foreland basin deposits and bounded above by a north-dipping roof thrust near the base of the Eocene. East-west-trending, basement-involved thrusts produced the Sadlerochit Mountains to the south, and buried, basement-involved thrusts are also present north of the Sadlerochit Mountains, where they appear to feed displacement into the thin-skinned system. Locally, late basement-involved thrusts postdate the thin-skinned thrusting. Both the basement-involved thrusts and the thin-skinned passive-roof duplex were principally active in the Miocene. In the eastern part of the 1002 area, a northward-younging pattern of thin-skinned deformation is apparent. Converging patterns of Paleocene reflectors on the north flank of the Sabbath syncline indicate that the Aichilik high and the Sabbath syncline formed as a passive-roof duplex and piggyback basin, respectively, just behind the Paleocene deformation front. During the Eocene and possibly the Oligocene, thin-skinned thrusting advanced northward over the present location of the Niguanak high. A passive-roof duplex occupied the frontal part of this system. The Kingak and Hue shales exposed above the Niguanak high were transported into their present structural position during the Eocene to Oligocene motion on the long thrust ramps above the present south flank of the Niguanak high. Broad, basement-cored subsurface domes (Niguanak high and Aurora dome) formed near the deformation front in the Oligocene, deforming the overlying thin-skinned structures and feeding a new increment of displacement into thin-skinned structures directly to the north. Deformation continued through the Miocene above a detachment in the basement. Offshore seismicity and Holocene shortening documented by previous workers may indicate that contractional deformation continues to the present day.

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Full article available in PDF version.

Full article available in PDF version.

Abstract Alaska is the eastern, subaerial part of a large subcontinent of distinctive tectonic character that serves as an isthmus between nuclear North America, with its fringing belt of allochthonous terranes, and the accreted terranes and volcanic belts that constitute northeastern Russia. Physiographically, this subcontinent, which we name Denalia, is a bulge in the continental platform in the vicinity of Alaska, the Chukotsk Peninsula, and the broad continental shelf of the Bering Sea. The bulge is convex to the south and is bounded on the east and west by constrictions in the width of the continental platform and on the north and south by the edge of the continental shelf (Fig. 1). Tectonically, Denalia is characterized by geologic youthfulness and complexity, an abundance of convergent and transcurrent faults, and absence of autochthonous cratonic rocks. It contains a profusion of lithotectonic terranes of diverse origin and age that were emplaced in late Mesozoic and Cenozoic time. In addition, it includes the superimposed Cenozoic Aleutian arc and subduction zone and the Queen Charlotte-Fairweather transform fault system. Parts of Denalia were created by pre-middle Mesozoic tectonic events, but these took place elsewhere, before the affected rocks were tectonically transported and incorporated into the landmass of Denalia. Except for a small area in the Porcupine Plateau region along the Alaska-Yukon boundary, the only Precambrian rocks that have been recognized in the subcontinent are in tectonically emplaced fragments, the largest of which is the Arctic Alaska terrane in the Brooks Range, Arctic Foothills, and Arctic Foothills