--> Bahamas – Cuba Margin, An Untested, Frontier Oil Province

Hedberg: Geology of Middle America – the Gulf of Mexico, Yucatan, Caribbean, Grenada and Tobago Basins and Their Margins

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Bahamas – Cuba Margin, An Untested, Frontier Oil Province

Abstract

The Old Bahamas (Santaren Channel) is an untested, frontier hydrocarbon province with a 7,000 meter succession of Lower Cretaceous to Jurassic carbonates. The Santaren paleo-channel exhibits a high amplitude, seismic facies from the Lower Aptian to Jurassic that has been calibrated as a proven oil prone source interval in nearby onshore Cuba, Florida and the Eastern US GOM. The Cuba — Grand Bahamas margin demarcates the docking of Cuba orogeny from the southwest against the Bahamas carbonate mega platform. The transpressional event resulted in a 100 kilometre fold and thrust structural trend initiated in the Early Tertiary with hydrocarbon expulsion and migration occurring to present day. With recent deep water carbonate discoveries in Guyana (Liza), and conjugate margin Senegal (SNE), the Santaren Channel with modest water depths of ~ 500 meters has similar play attributes for a potential, significant hydrocarbon discovery.