A comparative study of salient petroleum features of the Proterozoic–Lower Paleozoic succession in major petroliferous basins in the world

Abstract

The Proterozoic-Lower Paleozoic marine facies successions are developed in more than 20 basins with low exploration degree in the world. Some large-scale carbonate oil and gas fields have been found in the oldest succession in the Tarim Basin, Ordos Basin, Sichuan Basin, Permian Basin, Williston Basin, Michigan Basin, East Siberia Basin, and the Oman Basin. In order to reveal the hydrocarbon enrichment roles in the oldest succession, basin formation and evolution, hydrocarbon accumulation elements, and processes in the eight major basins are studied comparatively. The Williston Basin and Michigan Basin remained as stable cratonic basins after formation in the early Paleozoic, while the others developed into superimposed basins undergone multistage tectonic movements. The eight basins were mainly carbonate deposits in the Proterozoic-early Paleozoic having different sizes, frequent uplift, and subsidence leading to several regional unconformities. The main source rock is shale with total organic carbon content of generally greater than 1% and type I/II organic matters. Various types of reservoirs, such as karst reservoir, dolomite reservoir, reef-beach body reservoirs are developed. The reservoir spaces are mainly intergranular pore, intercrystalline pore, dissolved pore, and fracture. The reservoirs are highly heterogeneous with physical property changing greatly and consist mainly of gypsum-salt and shale cap rocks. The trap types can be divided into structural, stratigraphic, lithological, and complex types. The oil and gas reservoir types are classified according to trap types where the structural reservoirs are mostly developed. Many sets of source rocks are developed in theseCreative Commons CC-BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). basins and experienced multistage hydrocarbon generation and expulsion processes. In different basins, the hydrocarbon accumulation processes are different and can be classified into two types, one is the process through multistage hydrocarbon accumulation with multistage adjustment and the other is the process through early hydrocarbon accumulation and late preservation.

New exploration strategy in igneous petroliferous basins – Enlightenment from simulation experiments

“…Previous research suggests that source rocks in petroliferous basins can undergo multiple hydrocarbon generation processes (Simoneit and Lonsdale, 1982), especially those in superimposed basins that record multiple tectonic events (Jin, 2005; Liu et al., 2017). Such tectonic events are commonly associated with magmatism that occurs either simultaneously with or later than the initial hydrocarbon generation from source rocks in the basin (Figure 1).…”

The depositional evolution, reservoir characteristics, and controlling factors of microbial carbonates of Dengying Formation in upper Neoprotozoic, Sichuan Basin, Southwest China

“…Therefore, the karst dissolved pores and vugs of Dengying Formation are more frequently close to both margins of the intracratonic sag (Song et al, 2013). On the other hand, lower Cambrian Qiongzhusi Formation black mudstone is the most important source rock for the Paleozoic petroleum system in Sichuan Basin (Liu et al, 2013(Liu et al, , 2015(Liu et al, , 2016(Liu et al, , 2017Wei et al, 2014Wei et al, , 2015Zou et al, 2014), and also the shale gas exploration targets (Jiang et al, 2016;Zeng and Guo, 2015). Furthermore, the source rocks in the intracratonic sag are larger in thickness and better in quality (Liu et al, 2013(Liu et al, , 2015(Liu et al, , 2016Zou et al, 2014).…”

Formation environments and mechanisms of multistage paleokarst of Ordovician carbonates in Southern North China Basin

“…Carbonate karst is of great importance for carbonate karst reservoirs with high oil and gas reserves, including 52% of the reserves of oil and gas and about 60% of oil and gas outputs in the world 1 . Among the eight major oil and gas basins in the world, except for the Sichuan Basin in China and the East Siberian Basin in Russia, the oil and gas reservoirs in the Tarim Basin, Ordos Basin, Permian Basin, Williston Basin, Michigan Basin, and the Oman Basin, are all related to the Lower Paleozoic Ordovician and/or Cambrian carbonate paleokarst 1 – 3 . Therefore, an in-depth study of the developmental characteristics and formation mechanism of the Lower Paleozoic carbonate paleokarst will provide great insights and guidance for scientific exploration, development, and management of major oil and gas basins in the world.…”

“…In Northern China, oil and gas reserves are mainly concentrated in the Lower Paleozoic Ordovician carbonates in the Tarim Basin, Ordos Basin, and Bohai Bay Basin, where more than 60% of the total oil and gas production in China comes from 1,3 . Many researchers have found that the Ordovician carbonates in Northern China recorded not merely one, but multistage paleokarst, and different regions have rather site-specific formation environments and stages of the Ordovician paleokarst [4][5][6] .…”

“…Using petrology, mineralogy, and geochemical data from outcrops, drilling cores, thin sections, carbon and oxygen isotopes, and minor elements, this study aims to achieve the following objectives: (1) showing the paleokarst characteristics of the Ordovician carbonate rocks in the Huai-Fu Basin, (2) identifying and evaluating the formation stages and environments of the Ordovician paleokarst based on paleokarst morphology and geochemical characteristics, (3) revealing the formation mechanisms of multistage paleokarst, and (4) establishing the evolution models of the Ordovician carbonate paleokarst in the study area.…”