Abstract: Exploration of Plate Margins

By

Hunter Yarborough

Most of the major hydrocarbon accumulations occur in basins formed during the Mesozoic and the Cenozoic. Many of these basins, their contained sediments, and their structural and stratigraphically trapped oil and gas appear to be genetically related to the hypotheses of Plate Tectonics.

Of particular interest are those basins that formed at plate boundaries. Three fundamental methods of basin development according to type of plate margin deformation are reviewed: extensional (pull-apart), "compressional" (subduction, collision) and shear (wrench, transform, strike-slip, collision). Basin types, structural styles, sedimentary histories and hydrocarbon accumulations are reviewed for different plate margins.

The structural and sedimentary histories and the hydrocarbon potential for margins of the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean and the Pacific are reviewed and appraised. Also, the structural style and the hydrocarbon potential of orogenic belts related to plate boundaries are discussed.

End_Pages 3 and 4---------------

Copyright © 2005 by Houston Geological Society. All rights reserved.