The results of our research suggest that Lower Cretaceous, coarse-grained wedges in the southwestern Barents Sea (and Norwegian Sea) are point- and linear- sourced, either banked to basin margins and internal basin highs or terraces close to master faults.
In addition, two main progradational margins, sourced from large continental land areas to the W-NW and E-NE, may have provided coarse-grained sediments to basinal areas in the southwestern Barents Sea.
Therefore, specific evidences of the potential of the Lower Cretaceous wedges in the Barents Sea are:
I. The presence of high-angle, low-relief clinoforms on shallow platforms and terraces (e.g. Bjarmeland Platform and Fingerdjupet Subbasin) indicating progradation of coarsegrained, sandy, transitional paleoenvironments into the southwestern Barents Sea;
II. The occurrence of gravity-deposited sandstone bodies along the flanks of the Hammerfest, Harstad, and probably the Fingerdjupet basins indicates thick units of potentially good reservoir quality.
III. Shallow-marine to deltaic- deposited sandstones interpreted on intrabasinal highs and combined with the deltaic units in Svalbard (i.e. Helvetiafjellet Fm.) indicate a potential important play in the northern Barents Sea and on the eastern margin of the Barents Platform;
IV. A new sequence stratigraphic framework supported by revised biostratigraphy provided a better correlation tool than previous lithostratigraphic correlations, resulting in an improved paleogeography for the Lower Cretaceous in the entire Barents Sea (both Norwegian and Russian sectors). Furthermore, detailed mapping of well-known Lower
Cretaceous sediments in Svalbard, in combination with subsurface mapping, provided a better on- and off- shore correlation and insights to the paleogeography in areas where the Lower Cretaceous is poorly preserved or data is limited (e.g. northwestern and northcentral Barents Sea regions); and
V. The new sequence and seismic stratigraphic framework confirmed the presence of a lower Aptian Organic Marine Mudstone (OMM) event both onshore and offshore with a very complex paleogeographic distribution.