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Using Paleoclimate Models to Predict Source Rock Occurrence: Results from the GANDOLPH Project*

By

Christopher Scotese¹, John Zumberge², Harold Illich², Thomas Moore³, and Scott Ramos⁴

Search and Discovery Article #40287 (2008)

Posted May 30, 2008

*Adapted from oral presentation at AAPG Annual Convention, San Antonio, Texas, April 20-23, 2008.

¹ Earth & Environmental Sciences, Univeristy of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX ([email protected])

² GeoMark Research Ltd., Houston, TX

³ PaleoTerra Inc, Bollingbrook, IL

⁴ Infometrix inc, Bothell, WA

Abstract

Understanding the temporal and spatial distribution of source rocks, especially in unexplored and under-explored frontier regions is one of the greatest challenges in hydrocarbon system analysis. In order to address this problem, GeoMark Research Ltd, together with the PALEOMAP Project and PaleoTerra Inc., for the past 3 years has been building a GIS atlas of plate tectonic, paleogeographic, and paleoclimatic maps that illustrate the paleoenvironmental setting of known source rocks and oils (GANDOLPH Project). Eight of 12 planned intervals have been completed:

• Mid-Miocene
• Cenomanian/Turonian (C/T)
• Early Cretaceous
• Late Jurassic
• Late Triassic
• Early Permian
• Late Devonian
• Latest Ordovician-Early Silurian

One of the principal research goals of the GANDOLPH Project has been to test the paleoclimatic predictions made by the paleoclimate simulations with information about source rock paleoenviornmental conditions obtained from biomarkers in the oils. A second major research goal of the project has the construction of a tool (Source Rocker) that uses multivariate statistical techniques to:

• Identify the kinds of paleoenvironments in which source rocks are likely to have formed, and
• Estimate the reliability of these source rock predictions.

In this presentation we shall briefly review the results from all eight time intervals, and then discuss, in detail, the results from the C/T (Cenomanian/Turonian) and Late Devonian simulations. We shall describe how we built the SourceRocker tool and shall review the predictions it has made regarding the occurrence of probable source rocks in unexplored, and under-explored frontier regions.