A Survey of Canadian Arctic Offshore Basins with Satellite Radar for Reconnaissance Mapping of Natural Seep Occurrences

Christopher D. Jauer¹, Paul Budkewitsch², Gordon N. Oakey¹, Denis Lavoie³, and Keith Dewing^4
1Geological Survey of Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Dartmouth, NS, Canada.
²Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, Natural Resources Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
³Geological Survey of Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Quebec, QC, Canada.
⁴Geological Survey of Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Calgary, AB, Canada.

Foxe Basin, Hudson Bay Basin and Baffin Basin are collectively under explored and with rare exceptions exhibit few examples of an active petroleum system. With a total of almost 1,000,000 square kilometres in area, underpinned by few reconnaissance seismic sections, an opportunity was presented to incorporate alternative data sources, namely satellite radar, to assist with an exploratory review and resource assessment.

Environmental conditions under which radar data are acquired and the non-uniqueness of oil slicks on the sea surface make unambiguous determination of the presence of natural oil seeps problematic. A long-standing approach has been to reaffirm the presence of persistent seeps through repeat observations. More recently, correlation of the position of suspected seeps with subsurface seafloor pockmarks or mound-like structures of cold water coral reef development similar to that observed offshore Norway raises intriguing possibilities. First, it links persistent slick-like features observed in radar images to seafloor structures that suggest a long history and point to the presence of a petroleum system. In the absence of local sea floor data, location of suspected seeps could guide future investigations and illustrate the locations of potential new seeps previously not known.
Ice cover for much of the year limits the window of data collection opportunities. For these reasons, and to demonstrate persistence, a multi-year reconnaissance survey began in 2010 in support of the Geomapping for Energy (and Minerals) Program by the Geological Survey at Natural Resources Canada. This presentation will show first results from data collected in the eastern arctic and some of the data analysis technique being applied.

 

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90130©2011 3P Arctic, The Polar Petroleum Potential Conference & Exhibition, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 30 August-2 September, 2011.

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