Arctic Petroleum Geology

The vast Arctic region contains nine proven petroleum provinces with giant resources but over half of the sedimentary basins are completely undrilled, making the region the last major frontier for conventional oil and gas exploration. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the geology and the petroleum potential of the Arctic. Nine papers offer a circum-Arctic perspective on the Phanerozoic tectonic and palaeogeographic evolution, the currently recognized sedimentary basins, the gravity and magnetic fields and, perhaps most importantly, the petroleum resources and yet-to-find potential of the basins. The remaining 41 papers provide data-rich, geological and geophysical analyses and individual oil and gas assessments of specific basins throughout the Arctic. These detailed and well illustrated studies cover the continental areas of Laurentia, Baltica and Siberia and the Arctic Ocean. Of special interest are the 13 papers providing new data and interpretations on the extensive, little known, but promising, basins of Russia.
A DVD is provided inside the back of the book, that contains PDFs of all papers plus all related Supplementary Publications.
An overview of the petroleum geology of the Arctic
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Published:January 01, 2011
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CiteCitation
Anthony M. Spencer, Ashton F. Embry, Donald L. Gautier, Antonina V. Stoupakova, Kai Sørensen, 2011. "An overview of the petroleum geology of the Arctic", Arctic Petroleum Geology, Anthony M. Spencer, Ashton F. Embry, Donald L. Gautier, Antonina V. Stoupakova, Kai Sørensen
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Abstract
Nine main petroleum provinces containing recoverable resources totalling 61 Bbbl liquids+269 Bbbloe of gas are known in the Arctic. The three best known major provinces are: West Siberia–South Kara, Arctic Alaska and Timan–Pechora. They have been sourced principally from, respectively, Upper Jurassic, Triassic and Devonian marine source rocks and their hydrocarbons are reservoired principally in Cretaceous sandstones, Triassic sandstones and Palaeozoic carbonates. The remaining six provinces except for the Upper Cretaceous–Palaeogene petroleum system in the Mackenzie Delta have predominantly Mesozoic sources and Jurassic reservoirs. There are discoveries in 15% of the total area of sedimentary basins (c. 8×106 km2), dry wells in 10% of the area, seismic but no wells in 50% and no seismic in 25%. The United States Geological Survey estimate yet-to-find resources to total 90 Bbbl liquids+279 Bbbloe gas, with four regions – South Kara Sea, Alaska, East Barents Sea, East Greenland – dominating. Russian estimates of South Kara Sea and East Barents Sea are equally positive. The large potential reflects primarily the large undrilled areas, thick basins and widespread source rocks.