A potential oil and gas province in the highlatitude Russian Arctic

The regional stage of geological exploration in the northern Barents Sea is almost complete. For the seismic observations the density there is more than 0.2 line km/km². The density has been achieved mostly through the surveys by JSC Marine Arctic Geological Expedition performed for the Federal Subsoil Resources Management Agency, Rosnedra, under the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation in 2006-2012. The total volume of completed geophysical surveys including 2D CMP reflection seismic acquisition, shipboard gravity and differential marine magnetometer measurements is more than 30,000 line km. The seismic data acquired along with the maps of anomalous potential fields and their continuations allowed for the evaluation of oil and gas potential in that region (Figure 1).