About This Item
- Full TextFull Text(subscription required)
- Pay-Per-View PurchasePay-Per-View
Purchase Options Explain
Share This Item
The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
AAPG Special Volumes
Abstract
2004. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.
Structure and Hydrocarbon Potential of the New Guinea Fold Belt
Kevin C. Hill,1 Jeffrey T. Keetley,1 R. Dan Kendrick,1 Edy Sutriyono2
1Victorian Basin Studies Centre, Earth Sciences, La Trobe University Melbourne, Australia; Present address: 3D-GEO, Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3052, Australia.
2Victorian Basin Studies Centre, Earth Sciences, La Trobe University Melbourne, Australia; Present address: Universitas Sriwijaya, Palembang, Sumatra, Indonesia.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was funded by the Australian Geodynamics Cooperative Research Centre. We are grateful to Paradigm for making available Geosec and to the following organizations for support: the GRDC, Pertamina, Amoseas, Arco, BP, British Gas, Chevron JV, Esso, Mobil, Normandy, Oilsearch JV, P. T. Freeport, and Union Texas. AIDAB, the Australian Geodynamics Cooperative Research Centre and La Trobe University made available Ph.D. scholarships for Sutriyono, Keetley, and Kendrick. This paper is published with the permission of the Director of the Australian Geodynamics Cooperative Research Centre.
ABSTRACT
Seismic, borehole, and field data acquired over the last 12 years demonstrate that the structural
style in the Papuan Fold Belt comprises inverted basement extensional faults and asymmetric detachment folds that break through the overturned forelimb. The previous fault-bend fold model was flawed because of a lack of data and because of inappropriate analogs that ignored the mechanical stratigraphy.
In the oil province of Papua New Guinea, the deformation front has not yet impinged on strong Australian lithosphere, so a relatively low fold belt occupies its own foreland basin. The adjacent gas-condensate province in the western Papuan Fold Belt has just impinged on the strong lithosphere, developing a foreland basin and basement-cored anticlines. Along strike in the Irian Jaya Fold Belt, the deformation front has encountered the buttress of the strong Australian lithosphere, causing a 15-km-thick Paleozoic and Mesozoic sequence to be thrust to the surface along a previously extensional, basin-margin fault. Focusing deformation on one fault has created mountains 5 km high and an adjacent foreland basin. Structures in the mountains are breached, but the adjacent foreland basin has hydrocarbon potential. Farther west, in the “Bird's Neck” area, the poorly known Lengguru Fold Belt resembles the oil province in the Papuan Fold Belt, but Pleistocene extensional faulting may have caused breaching. In addition, deep burial by thick Tertiary carbonates has probably destroyed reservoir porosity, except in the north, where additional discoveries like the 30-tcf Tangguh gas province are possible.
Pay-Per-View Purchase Options
The article is available through a document delivery service. Explain these Purchase Options.
Watermarked PDF Document: $14 | |
Open PDF Document: $24 |