Abstract: Possibilities of Hydrocarbon Exploration Beneath and Within the Northern Carpathian Thrust Belt

SLACZKA, ANDRZEJ

In the Northern Carpathians, hitherto discovered hydrocarbon fields are shallow, generally up to 1500m. However sedimentological and tectonic data, together with new magneto-telluric soundings, confirm a good possibility of the existence of reservoirs rocks and hydrocarbon accumulations: 1) in Miocene molasse beneath the Carpathian overthrust and 2) below the Magura nappe-thrust.

1) The geologic data imply that thousands of cubic km of material was eroded from the N. Carpathians prior to the Middle Miocene age. This Early Miocene molasse crops out along the frontal part of the Eastern Carpathians as a separate nappe but is absent in the frontal part of the N.Carpathians. Therefore, a great amount of the Early Miocene Molasse (mainly sandstones) have to be hidden below the N.Carpathian thrust belt, as was already suggested by Zytko. It is situated south from the northern slope of longitudinal depression, revealed by magneto-telluric soundings.

The occurrence of huge olistoliths derived from the northern margin of the Carpathian flysch basin, within the marginal part of the eastern sector of the Northern Carpathians, practically excludes a prolongation of the oil-bearing Eastern Carpathian Borislav-Pokuty Unit below the N.Carpathians.

2) Sedimentological data (eg., lithofacies and thickness distribution, transport directions) show that the majority of submarine clastic fans which crop out in front of the Magura nappe (Fore-Magura and Silesian Units) are lacking of their proximal parts. Geologic and seimic data imply that this part of the fans are now hidden below the southern part of the Magura nappe-thrust.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90942©1997 AAPG International Conference and Exhibition, Vienna, Austria