AAPG Memoir 76, Chapter 2: The Interrelationships between Overpressure Mechanisms and In-Situ Stresses , by T.W. Miller, C.H. Luk and D.L. Olgaard, Pages 13 - 20
from:
AAPG Memoir 76: Pressure Regimes in Sedimentary Basins and Their Prediction, Edited by Alan Huffman and Glenn Bowers
Copyright © 2001 by The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.

Chapter 2
The Interrelationships between Overpressure Mechanisms and In-Situ Stresses

T.W. Miller
Knowledge Systems Inc
Stafford, Texas

C.H. Luk
Retired from ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company
Houston, Texas

D.L. Olgaard
ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company
Houston, Texas

ABSTRACT

In this chapter, we discuss how the two different excess pore-pressure–generating mechanisms that are primarily associated with burial affect stresses in different ways. We, and others before us, term these two mechanisms as either “compaction disequilibrium” or “source mechanisms.” Rapid burial rates in association with low permeabilities are attributed to the former, whereas aquathermal expansion, smectite/illite diagenesis (or other diagenetic processes), kerogen maturation, and hydrocarbon cracking are examples of the latter.