Petroleum Prospects in the Fold-Thrust Zones of the Sinop-Samsun Basin, Central Black Sea Continental Margin of Turkey

Sen, Samil ¹
(1)Istanbul University, Geology Departman, Istanbul, Turkey.

The Sinop-Samsun Basin is located in the Central Black Sea Continental Margin of Turkey. North of the Sinop-Samsun Basin, there is Western Black Sea Basin and Mid Black Sea High. Basement of the basin is represented by the Pre-Jurassic Paleotethys Ocean remnants. South margin of the basin is restricted by the Neotethys Ocean ophiolites and ophiolitic mélange of Late Cretaceous. The Sinop- Samsun Basin consists of the Upper Jurassic-Present sediments, nearly 7000 meters thick. The basin formed as a complex basin from passive continental margin and rift basin to arc basins and retro arc foreland basin.

Sinop-Samsun basin is a prospect area of the petroleum exploration. The Lower Cretaceous the Caglayan Formation in the basin has good oil and gas source rock potential and the Lower Eocene the Kusuri formation has moderate gas source rock potential. The basin has oil and gas seeps. The basin has many potential structural traps, which represented by anticlines and thrusts related collisional tectonics. The generated hydrocarbons from those formations may be accumulated the traps in the folds and thrusts. Although thirteen exploration wells were drilled in 1960s to 1980s in the basin, no oil or gas were discovered. The analysis of the drillings suggest that the wells have been drilled near the Ekinveren, Erikli and Ballifaki thrusts, where structurally complex and oil and gas seeps areas. However, unfortunately the exploration wells were not drilled in the most prospect fold traps, especially near the eastern areas.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90135©2011 AAPG International Conference and Exhibition, Milan, Italy, 23-26 October 2011.