Journal of Petroleum Geology, Vol.1, No.1, pp. 65-77, 1978

©Copyright 2000 Scientific Press, Ltd.

STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE NORTHERN NORTH SEA

J. T. C. Hay*

* BNOC (Development) Ltd, Aberdeen.

Abstract

The Northern North Sea basin is a relatively narrow, grabenal or half grabenal, north-south trending feature. The trapping structures are tilted fault blocks. In the southern part of the basin these are mainly westwards tilted blocks formed by down to the east throw faults trending north-south, parallel to the basin margins. This could fit with general plate tectonic theory, but in the northern part of the area this faulting is complicated by a pronounced NE-SW trend. This is parallel to the old Caledonian trend and it is postulated that strike-slip faulting may have been re-activated during the Mesozoic. This strike-slip movement on the NE-SW fault trend gave a tendency for individual fault block rotation resulting in a variety of block tilt directions in the northern part of the basin.