Evidences and indications of mature Paleozoic source rocks in the North Sea

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Devonian Only a few wells have drilled into the Devonian on the NOCS. The source rock quality measured on shales from the Embla Field show these at best to be Type III, gas prone source rocks (Pedersen et al. 2006). Lacustrine sediments with oil-prone source rock quality where deposited in Devonian time in the Orchadian Basin (Duncan and Buxton, 1995; Marchall and Hewett, 2003). The Devonian sourced, solid bitumen seen in the wells on Embla (see figure below) may have been sourced from these la...
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Objective

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The main goal of this project is to improve the understanding of the Paleozoic petroleum system in the southern North Sea Paleozoic sub-basins following the work of Ohm et al. (2012) and Doudouh (2017). For such a purpose, we aim for a 4-year project that includes at least one PhD student to study the tectonic-stratigraphic evolution of the Paleozoic sub-basins based on seismic data and evaluate the potential of possible Paleozoic source rocks by doing detailed geochemical analysis. The estimate...
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Background

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Despite showing a great success in the UK and Dutch sector, the Paleozoic intervals are still underexplored in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, see figure A and B below. Some of the biggest discoveries in the UK sector is within in the Devonian sandstones and lacustrine sediments, while for the Dutch and southern North Sea the Carboniferous play model has proven successful. Figure (A) shows the distribution of known Devonian rocks in the North Sea (Marshall and Hewett, 2003). Red rectan...
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PaBas Project

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Apart from the rather limited reports on Paleozoic derived oils there are many oils in the North Sea with “atypical” Jurassic fingerprints. Could these be sourced by Paleozoic source rocks, or represent mixtures of Jurassic and Paleozoic derived oils?   In this study a suite of North Sea oils will be analysed geochemically and those with an atypical Jurassic signature will be investigated in further detail to reveal if they may have a Pre-Jurassic origin. It will further be explored if po...
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