Field Guide To The Cenozoic Platform Carbonates And Salt Tectonics Of The Maltese Islands

The Oligo-Miocene sediments of the Maltese Islands are the only emergent part of the <200 km-wide Malta Platform which comprises part of the productive Ragusa Basin and Pelagian Petroleum Provinces and is confined by the offshore Sirt Basin along the southeast. Remarkably, only 13 wells have been drilled since the 1950s, none of which are producing. The objective of most wells was the Late Triassic and Jurassic carbonate reservoirs of the Ragusa Basin that extends from SE Sicily to offshore northeast Malta. The topography and coastal configuration of the Maltese Islands are controlled by NE and SW trending faults (Illies, 1981). Discordant kilometre-wide circular domes and a depression (field area) marked by gravity anomalies (Harrison, 1953) result from hitherto unrecognised salt tectonics although three onshore wells coincide with these salt tectonic features (Figure 1). The domes are fault-bend folds involving a gypsum décollement surface. However, Cenozoic reservoirs controlled by salt tectonics remain unexplored.