Abstract

Petroleum is usually discovered by drilling favorable prospects. The best prospects generally result from the combined assessment of a basin sedimentary fill, the type and distribution of source rocks, trapping locations, and comparison with other basins and prospects. The one ingredient that is often missing, however, if the additional assessment of the dynamic behavior of a basin down to the prospect scale.

Petroleum and basins are not static. Together, they evolve from the dynamic interplay of earth processes that control plate motion, deposition, compaction, maturation, fluid flow, migration and entrapment. It is difficult to quantify these processes and to define the timing and scale of the parameters controlling hydrocarbon occurrence without considering process interdependence. New techniques for modelling these processes have been made possible by the recent explosion if computer power and graphics. Exploration tools are becoming available that will help explorationists "see" a whole new dimension that was previously invisible. These tools will help explorationists develop new insight and be more creative if the prospect generating process. The modelling capability, developed as a result of applying numerical techniques to earth processes, takes into account the explicit interdependence of basin fill (compaction and pressure generation), heat flow, fluid flow, structuring, source rock kinetics for each kerogen type and hydrocarbon migration. The graphics and scientific visualization techniques available with the aid of computers can help explorationists "see" dynamic rates of change and develop new intuition about hydrocarbon occurrence.