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Introduction to the Maracaibo Basin theme issue

¹ Institute for Geophysics, John A. and Katherine G. Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, 4412 Spicewood Springs Road, Building 600, Austin, Texas 78759; paulm@utig.ig.utexas.edu
² Institute for Geophysics, John A. and Katherine G. Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, 4412 Spicewood Springs Road, Building 600, Austin, Texas 78759; escalona@utig.ig.utexas.edu

Paul Mann is a senior research scientist at the Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas at Austin. He received his Ph.D. in geology at the State University of New York in 1983 and has published widely on the tectonics of strike-slip, rift, and collision-related sedimentary basins. A current focus area of research is the interplay of tectonics, sedimentation, and hydrocarbon occurrence in Venezuela and Trinidad.

Alejandro Escalona is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas at Austin. He received his Ph.D. in geology at the University of Texas at Austin in 2003 where he focused on the stratigraphic and structural evolution of the Maracaibo Basin, Venezuela. He is currently interpreting subsurface data from offshore Venezuela in order to link offshore and on-land Cenozoic depocenters.

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With past production of 30 billion bbl of oil, the Maracaibo Basin of Venezuela is at the top tier of the world's most prolific supergiant basins. This special issue includes nine papers that describe all aspects of this unique basin, including its modern tectonic and geologic setting, its tectonic history since the Late Jurassic, its stratigraphy and structure, and its petroleum system. Although a mature basin, the Maracaibo Basin is by no means "played out." Conservative reserve estimates top 14 billion bbl; modern secondary recovery methods now being applied to older production wells could increase these estimates considerably. These reserve estimates, combined with its strategic location in the central part of the western hemisphere, will ensure that the Maracaibo Basin will be of interest to the AAPG . . . [Full Text of this Article]