Print this pageAAPG GEO 2010 Middle East
Geoscience Conference & Exhibition
Innovative Geoscience Solutions – Meeting Hydrocarbon Demand in Changing Times
March 7-10, 2010 – Manama, Bahrain
Structural and Tectonic History of the Sedimentary Basin in Northern Iraq and the Kurdistan Region
(1) GeoDesign Ltd, Kingsong upon Thames, United Kingdom.
The aim of this study is to address the main aspects of the structural and tectonic evolution of the sedimentary basin in northern Iraq and identifies all the sedimentary cycles in details from the Late Triassic period to Pliocene.
The second part tackles the Geohistory modelling of all the encountered source rocks in the basin and evaluates their maturation history and expulsion of hydrocarbons.
The study of the structural and tectonic history of northern Iraq and the Kurdistan region describes in detail the evolution of the sedimentary basin and involved constructing a series of isopach and facies maps accompanied by numerous schematic sedimentary cross sections covering the entire encountered sedimentary cycles from the Late Triassic to the Pliocene time.
The sedimentary sequence was subdivided into cycles defined by major unconformities with their corresponding conformity surfaces. Isopach and facies maps were constructed for each sedimentary cycle followed by detailed construction of lateral and vertical schematic sections identifying the various facies within each cycle and describing the transgression and regression episodes influencing the development of the various facies. The subsidence history during the development of each cycle was analysed and studied using a series of tectonic models and constructing several schematic cross sections showing the various tectonic and structural events affecting the development of each cycle.
The tectonic and structural evolution of the sedimentary basin was studied by constructing the thermal and subsidence history from 46 sites involving analysing 27 wells and 19 stratigraphic measured sections from the Kurdistan region and northern Iraq. Source maturation and expulsion history was achieved using a one dimension Fobos Pro (V3.2) software modelling programme with the results presented in a series of source rock transformation ratio (TR) maps constructed for each source rock sequence. The total amounts of expelled hydrocarbons are also presented in two regional maps covering the entire studied area showing the total expelled oil and the total expelled wet gas respectively.
Finally, all the constructed maps presented and displayed in this study are displayed in geographic information system (GIS) using ESRI ArcGIS (V. 9.2) software programme.