Reconstucting Petroleum Elements along the Bahamian Margin: Sequence Stratigraphic and Geodynamic Interactions

Hydrocarbon generation along the Bahamian Margin is primarily the result of thrust loading of Jurassic and Cretaceous source rocks during formation of the North Cuba fold and thrust belt in the Late Cretaceous to Paleogene. Traps are dominantly faulted anticlines, fault propagation anticlines, north-verging folds and inverted block faults formed during the collision of the Cuban island arc with the southern margin of the Bahamian carbonate platform. Hydrocarbons migrated into structures in the fold and thrust belt, the foreland basin, and possibly into carbonate reservoirs along the margins of the Yucatan and Bahamas car[|#31#|]bonate platforms (Schenk, 2010).

Recent work (Stanek, 2007; Pardo, 2009) has demonstrated that the stratigraphic provinces of Cuba are the result of collision between shelf, slope, and basinal sediments of the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous passive mar[|#31#|]gin of the eastern Maya block and the North American Craton with the increasingly alkali volcanic arc rocks of the leading edge of the Great Arc of the Caribbean. Needless to say, the petroleum systems of the North Cuba Basin and Bahamian Margin are complex and the need for a regional stratigraphic framework integrated with an explicit geodynamic reconstruction of the area is manifest.

An independent, global sequence stratigraphic model has been developed using the expansive datasets in the public domain (Simmons et al., 2007) that allows plate to plate and basin to basin chronostratigraphic correlation based on biostratigraphically constrained maximum flooding surfaces (MFS) and sequence boundaries (SB), facilitating a regional stratigraphic framework for the northern (proto)Caribbean region. This stratigraphic framework has been integrated with a Geodynamic Plate Reconstruction model derived from the University of Lausanne plate tectonics research program to produce palinspastically restored gross depositional environment maps. This multidisciplinary approach provides crucial insight into the lithostratigraphic relationships of complex structures in the fold and thrust belt, the foreland basin and the adjacent carbonate reservoirs, thus refining existing and defining new play concepts in the region and reducing risk.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90142 © 2012 AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition, April 22-25, 2012, Long Beach, California