Basin Modeling of Barents Shelf Source Potential

John Clark, Arne Forsberg, Brian Jepsen, David Worsley

The Norwegian sector of the Barents Shelf covers a large area of almost 500,000 km² with a highly varied structure and stratigraphy. This province is still at an early stage of exploration where only one structural element--the Hammerfest basin--has a reasonable well coverage, while neighboring areas have been tested by few and perhaps unrepresentative wells. It is important to realize that this is an area not easily defined by simple subsidence and heat-flow models.

Several phases of subsidence--in the Carboniferous, Permo-Triassic, Cretaceous, and early Tertiary--have been interrupted by periods of uplift and erosion. These demonstrate the interplay of differing tectonic regimes on basinal evolution and reflect the area's unique position at the northwest margins of the European plate. Tectonic controls in the late Paleozoic were governed by the Uralian assembly of Eurasia to the east and by lateral movements to the west. The Mesozoic and Tertiary were characterized by the counterposed effects of the early development phases of the Arctic basin to the north and of the Norwegian-Greenland Sea to the west.

Successful modeling of Paleozoic and Mesozoic hydrocarbon source maturation demands better understanding of these varying tectonic regimes' effects on heat-flow variation both in time and space. Of special relevance is the Tertiary history of the region. An Eocene to Oligocene sequence in the order of 1 km thick was eroded over much of the area following initiation of sea-floor spreading to the west at anomaly 13 time. This has had profound effects on both hydrocarbon source potential and reservoir properties.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91038©1987 AAPG Annual Convention, Los Angeles, California, June 7-10, 1987.