Petroleum Exploration and Geology of the Aegean

Theodore C. Bartling, Jerry Gips

The present-day Aegean Sea covers several graben and/or half-graben basins filled with more than 12,000 ft of sedimentary rocks. The normal faulting observed on seismic record sections indicates a tensional tectonic regime. There is a marked coincidence of modern basins and bathymetric highs with paleobasins and highs. A stratigraphic section of marine clastics of Eocene through Miocene-Pliocene age have been encountered in the seven wildcat wells drilled.

Cretaceous-age rocks must be considered basement for petroleum exploration because, except for an area in the eastern Aegean, Cretaceous and older rocks were metamorphosed during the Alpine orogenies. The Eocene is a transgressive clastic sequence. The Oligocene is conformable with the underlying Eocene. The Miocene is predominantly a regressive clastic sequence. This series ended with evaporitic conditions. The Messinian evaporite is an excellent seismic marker and is the seal for the one producing field in the Aegean Sea. Source rocks and reservoir rocks are found in both the Eocene and the Miocene.

Four of the seven wildcats drilled have encountered hydrocarbon shows. Prinos field, discovered in 1974, was put on production in 1981 and is currently producing at design capacity of 25,000 to 28,000 bbl of oil per day. Cumulative production is approximately 50 million bbl. Prinos field is only 7 mi from metamorphic basement outcrop, yet field wells have penetrated more than 10,000 ft of Tertiary marine clastics.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91032©1988 Mediterranean Basins Conference and Exhibition, Nice, France, 25-28 September 1988.