USGS
Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal: Status Report and Initial Ranking of Arctic
Sedimentary Basins
Gautier, Donald L.1, L.P.
White2, Arthur Grantz3 (1) U. S. Geological Survey, Menlo
Park, CA (2) U.S. Geological Survey, Houston, (3) Consulting Geologist, Palo
Alto, CA
The
In support of a USGS project to appraise
the petroleum potential, a new map of Arctic sedimentary successions has been
compiled; more than 100 sedimentary accumulations have been identified and
classified according to (1) geologic age, (2) sediment thickness, (3) tectonic
setting, and (4) data availability. These four classifications provide the
analytical basis for province definition and for initial province ranking that
integrates petroleum potential and geologic uncertainty. This integrated
ranking may be useful to governments and industry in allocating human and
financial resources to Arctic resource evaluation, and may also be of interest
in current exploration planning.
A basin evolution chart is being prepared
for each ranked province. The chart will support (1) evaluation of the
geological risk of existence of large petroleum systems, (2) basin modeling,
(3) identification of appropriate analogs to be used in further geologic,
engineering and economic evaluation and (4) probabilistic assessment of
undiscovered petroleum resources. The northeast
AAPG Search and Discover Article #90063©2007 AAPG Annual Convention, Long Beach, California