Abstract: Hydrocarbon Potential of Western Greece

Konstantinos Nikolaou, Randy L. Chamberlain, Dietrich H. Roeder

The habitat of on-stream and potential production around the Adriatic Sea consists of two geological settings: Mesozoic platform carbonates charged by euxinic-trough shales, and Neogene clastic fill of the synorogenic Ionic basin sequence with indigenous and seeped hydrocarbons. The setting of the Mesozoics is a polyphase rifted passive margin of Tethys. The Neogene is a foredeep sequence. Both are intimately related through the Alpine Neogene compressional and extensional orogeny and through Tertiary diapirism of the mid-Triassic Burano evaporite. A cross section in western Greece shows a west-vergent Dahlstromian fold-thrust belt capped by the Tethyan Pindos ophiolites and stacking an easterly, basinal sequence above a westerly platform sequence. A sharp thrust contact between both equences and persistent Tertiary facies differences suggest an Ionian precursor to the Hellenic trench. It has an estimated northward subduction of 500 km, and its main detachment is located in the Burano. In both plates of the Ionian trench, the tectonic style is dominated by salt mobility. We recognize pre-Alpine diapirs, pre-Alpine extensional scars, early-Alpine detached folds, and mid-Alpine thrust stacks, possibly forming mappable and prospective duplex structures. Related to the present Hellenic subduction, a late-Alpine belt of detached folds drilled during the 60s is contemporaneous with Aegean plateau collapse and ubiquitous extensional tectonics.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90986©1994 AAPG Annual Convention, Denver, Colorado, June 12-15, 1994