The Baltimore Canyon Trough is the site of 26 exploration wells and two stratigraphic tests. As of November 1981, six dry holes had been drilled on the Great Stone Dome. This structure appeared to be the largest and most promising in the basin. Seventeen wells have been drilled along the edge of the continental shelf with significant hydrocarbon shows reported from five wells. Combined daily flow rate is 90 mmcf. This flow is approximately one-half the amount required to warrant construction of a production platform and pipeline.

Georges Bank basin is characterized by an older thick carbonate and evaporite sequence (0 to 8 km) of Late Triassic-Early Jurassic age; a middle sequence of interbedded limestone, sandstone, mudstone, and red shale of Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous age (0 to 2.5 km); and a thin sequence (middle Cretaceous and younger) of transgressive shelf limestone and regressive claystone and siltstone (0.5 to 2 km). Elevated patch reefs beneath the shelf and a massive reeflike carbonate buildup under the slope form potential hydrocarbon traps. The patch reefs, which are elongate to circular and as much as several kilometers across, have caused a broad arching of younger strata. They may be built on salt swells or elevated basement blocks. A two-dimensional, finite-difference simulation of the main basin's thermal history of crustal stretching and subsidence suggests that some of the oldest sedimentary sections over the seaward part of rift-stage crust and extending out to oceanic crust are thermally mature for oil generation.

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