Article from the Archive: Some geological advances resulting from North Sea exploration

In 1964 when the first well was spudded in the search for hydrocarbons beneath the North Sea, little was known about the geology. Since then, in the process of discovering some 35 x 109 barrels (4.8 x l09m3 of recoverable oil and 180 x 1012 ft3 (5 x 1012 m3) of gas, there has been an explosion of geological, geophysical and geochemical data. What seems obvious now but was not realized when exploration began, is that in many areas of the North Sea the stratigraphical sequence is more continuous than in the positive flanking areas of adjacent land. Indeed, those flank areas sourced a great variety of sediments, which were then deposited in a range of basinal environments, all of which makes the North Sea such a fascinating area to study. Furthermore, the area is bisected by a major graben system, the Central and Viking Grabens and the smaller Witch Ground Graben, which has a dominant control on the hydrocarbon distribution. Other grabens further east (Hom, Bamble, Oslo, Gifford) have, as yet, no associated hydrocarbons. But more about that later.