Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Google Scholar Articles by Paton, D. A. Articles by Horsfield, B. GeoRef GeoRef Citation

Tectonically induced adjustment of passive-margin accommodation space; influence on the hydrocarbon potential of the Orange Basin, South Africa

¹ GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, Department 4 Chemistry of the Earth, Section 4.3 Organic Geochemistry, Telegrafenberg, D-14473 Potsdam, Germany; present address: Centre for Integrated Geoscience, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, The University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom; d.a.paton{at}leeds.ac.uk
² Petroleum Agency South Africa, Petroleum House 151 Frans Conradie Drive, Parow, Cape Town, South Africa
³ GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, Department 4 Chemistry of the Earth, Section 4.3 Organic Geochemistry, Telegrafenberg, D-14473 Potsdam, Germany
⁴ GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, Department 4 Chemistry of the Earth, Section 4.3 Organic Geochemistry, Telegrafenberg, D-14473 Potsdam, Germany

Douglas Paton currently undertakes research and teaching on integrated basin analysis at the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, where his main research focus is in the structural evolution of sedimentary basins. Prior to his current position, he undertook research at Leeds in collaboration with BHP Billiton, in the Chevron Center of Research Excellence, Colorado School of Mines, and at the GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam. He holds an M.A. degree from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh.

David van der Spuy is the manager of the Resource Evaluation Department of the Petroleum Agency SA, South Africa's regulatory and promotional authority. He has 19 years of experience in the petroleum industry and has worked for Soekor and Halliburton and as a private contractor. He graduated with honors in geology from the University of Cape Town in 1984 and received his M.Sc. degree in geochemistry in 1990. His primary interests are in thermal-maturity modeling and petroleum systems.

Rolando di Primio joined the GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam as a senior research scientist in 2001 after having worked as an exploration geologist in the Norwegian petroleum industry for several years. He holds a diploma in geology from the Rheinisch-Westfaelische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Germany, and a Ph.D. from the University of Cologne. His research interests are hydrocarbon phase behavior, basin modeling, and organic geochemistry.

Brian Horsfield is a professor of organic geochemistry and hydrocarbon systems at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany, and leads the Organic Geochemistry Section at GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam. He has 27 years of experience working with and for industries in upstream research and development. His research interests include predicting fluid compositions ahead of drilling in petroleum systems and unraveling the workings of the deep biosphere.

A seismic-stratigraphic investigation integrated with the structural modeling of the southern part of the Orange Basin passive margin, South Africa, demonstrates that a single tectonic event resulted in a significant alteration to both the location and style of sediment accumulation during its postrift evolution. This alteration to the margin has a significant effect on the hydrocarbon system of the area, we predict that it increased the hydrocarbon potential of the area. The evolution of the margin can be divided into two principal phases; the first comprised an overall aggradational shelf margin with little or no deformation during the Cretaceous. Deposition during the Late Cretaceous was punctuated by an episode of margin tilting that resulted in significant erosion of the inner margin and alteration of the margin architecture. The second phase of deposition, during the Tertiary, occurred to the west of the Cretaceous shelf margin and was characterized by significant margin instability and the development of a coupled growth fault and toe-thrust system. This change in passive-margin configuration and the associated switch in the location of overburden accumulation is likely to have increased the petroleum prospectivity of the deep-water part of the margin. We predict that the rapid western (seaward) migration of sediment accumulation resulted in the maturation of the high-quality distal source interval, whereas the resulting toe-thrust geometry provides suitable structural traps for the hydrocarbons.