Basin Analysis

Who should attend?

Geologists and geophysicists involved in new ventures or exploration who require the skills to evaluate petroleum systems and their hydrocarbon potential.

Overview:

The workshop course is intended to emphasise the practical geological applications of basin analysis studies to petroleum exploration. This course takes the trainee up to just below the level of full play fairway and petroleum systems analysis. However, it stresses the importance of basin evolution to petroleum generation, migration and accumulation. It will include worked examples in rift basins, foreland basins and wrench basins and will emphasise the combined roles of tectonics and eustasy, palaeoclimate and biotic evolution. The course also represents an excellent precursor to the Sequence Stratigraphy courses. The course will concentrate on the practical uses of integrated datasets and how to apply these tools for basin analysis.

Content:

• Plate tectonics: Lithosphere, asthenosphere, and crust/mantle
• Basin formation: Rift, passive margins, sag basins, foreland flexure, piggy-back basins, wrench basins and thermal evolution
• Controls on basin stratigraphy: Role of tectonics, role of sea level, eustasy versus isostasy, palaeoclimatic influences, global tectonic influences and an introduction to sequence stratigraphy
• Classification of basins: Classification schemes and classification associated with evolutionary style
• Datasets
• The concept of megasequences
• Introduction to play fairway analysis
• Analogue basin identification