The Oligocene–Early Miocene Maykop depositional system of the Western Black Sea Basin is investigated in terms of sediment supply and provenance. Potential sediment source regions and conduits for sediment supply into the deep-water portion of the basin are evaluated based on the tectonic history and framework of the region, and are supported by observations from published well, reflection seismic and isopach data. The outcrop geology of the present-day land areas adjacent to the basin is used as a guide to the likely provenance and, hence, quality of potential siliciclastic reservoirs. Reservoir presence and reservoir quality are key subsurface risks for exploration in deep-water plays involving Maykop turbidite sandstones and charge from the well-known Maykop organic carbon-rich mudstones that are widespread across the basin.Sediments sourced from the NE Moesian Platform and Dobrogea, channelled into the offshore Black Sea via the Histria Trough, are considered moderate risk in terms of primary reservoir quality, as evidenced by thick packages of fine-grained sediment. In contrast, sediments derived from the southern Strandja Massif fed into the Burgas Basin, and potentially into the deeper-water Turkish Black Sea, are relatively low risk in terms of reservoir quality, given the abundance of acidic intrusions within the massif. Sediment derived from parts of the northern Strandja Massif, especially the volcaniclastics of the Srednogornie region, are likely to have poorer reservoir quality characteristics. Sediments derived from the granitic Bolu Massif within the Pontides might be of good reservoir quality but are likely to be ponded behind the offshore Kozlu Ridge. An important sediment source-to-sink system was derived from the Balkanides and entered the deeper-water western Black Sea via the Kamchia Trough. The present-day Kamchia river is a relatively minor sediment supplier to the Black Sea, but the palaeo-Kamchia river of the Oligocene–Early Miocene would have exploited a much greater drainage area consisting of an axial trunk stream, occupying the newly formed Kamchia Foredeep to the north of the Balkanides, and transverse rivers sourcing sediment from the granitic and gneissic bodies of the Balkan Mountains and from Early Cretaceous and Palaeogene sandstones. These would provide reasonable reservoir quality, and it is estimated from reference source-to-sink relationships that offshore sediment flux via this system was probably at least eight times greater than at present. Known shelf-edge canyons in offshore Bulgaria facilitated this sediment reaching the deep water offshore, where a sedimentary fan with a length in excess of 150 km is likely to have developed. This suggests that the potential is good for encountering good-quality reservoir sands in the Maykop succession deep water of the western Black Sea, and this aspect of regional play risk could be of less concern than was previously considered.

The role of climate change in driving alluvial-fan sedimentation is hard to assess in pre-Quaternary successions, for which detailed chronologies and climate-proxy records cannot be easily established. In the Teruel Basin (Spain), high-resolution (104–105 years) chronological and palaeoclimatic information was derived by orbital tuning of Late Miocene mudflat to ephemeral-lake deposits. The semi-arid palaeoclimate made this low-gradient, basinal environment sensitive to thresholds in the local hydrological balance. Basic facies rhythms are attributed to alternating, relatively humid/arid phases controlled by the climatic precession cycle. The lower stratigraphic interval of this reference section interfingers with distal, coarse-clastic beds from a coeval alluvial fan. The consistent interdigitation of debris-flow deposits with distal strata indicative of arid-to-humid climate transitions shows that fan sedimentation was regulated by climate cyclicity. In particular, the largest volumes of terrigenous debris were shed from the fan onto adjacent mudflats during transitions to relatively humid periods with pronounced seasonality, during precession minima. Distal to medial sections within alluvial-fan outcrops also feature prominent, laterally continuous alternations of coarse- and fine-clastic packages. This high degree of architectural organization, uncommon in fan successions, and stratigraphic relationships with the reference section suggest orbitally controlled climate change to have been the forcing mechanism.

The Paleocene–Eocene-aged Sele Formation is developed across the basinal region of the Central North Sea. The section comprises a number of deep-marine fan systems that expanded and contracted across the basin floor in response to relative sea-level changes on the basin margin and fluctuating sediment yield off the Scottish landmass modulated by climate and hinterland uplift. Persistent sediment entry points to the basin resulted in the development of discrete axial and transverse fan fairways with a geometry dictated by an irregular bathymetry sculpted by differential compaction across Mesozoic faults, halokinesis and antecedent fan systems. A high-resolution biostratigraphic framework has allowed the evolution of fan-dispersal systems in response to these effects to be tracked across the basin within four genetic sequences. The proximal parts of the fans comprised channel complexes of low sinuosity, high lateral offset, and low aggradation. The development of these systems in a bathymetrically confined corridor of the Central Graben (c. 65 km wide), combined with high sediment supply, resulted in the eventual burial of any underlying relief. The behaviour of sand-rich reservoirs in this region is dominated by the permeability contrast between high-quality channel fairways and more heterolithic overbank regions, with the potential for early water breakthrough and aquifer coning in the channel fairways, and unswept volumes in overbank locations. Compartmentalization of compensationally stacked channel bodies occurs locally, with stratigraphic trapping caused by lateral channel pinch-outs, channel-base debrites, mud-rich drapes and abandonment fines. Towards the southern part of Quadrant 22, approximately 150 km down-palaeoflow, the systems became less confined and in this region are dominated by channel–lobe complexes, which continued to interact with an irregular bathymetry controlled by antecedent fans, mass-transport complexes and halokinesis in the form of rising salt diapirs. Reservoirs in this region are inherently stratigraphically compartmentalized by their heterolithic lithology and compensational stacking of lobes, and further complicated by structuration and instability induced by the diapiric or basement structures needed to generate a trapping structure in these settings.