Stratigraphic modelling of turbidite prospects to reduce exploration risk

This article presents an integrated workflow to model the evolution of ancient turbidity currents on a 3D structurally reconstructed palaeo-seafloor, allowing ancient turbidite sediment distributions to be estimated. Effective use of such approaches requires efficient model-inversion procedures so that model parameters (e.g. flow dimensions, densities etc.) can be estimated from any available data. It is shown that a directed Monte Carlo approach (i.e. a simple genetic search algorithm) is very effective. A case study of a Mesozoic prospect in the UK North Sea shows the power of these methods to discriminate between potentially attractive sediment-source locations. The main power of this approach lies in its ability to exclude many, otherwise attractive, sedimentation scenarios.