oa Petroleum Systems and Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of the Levant Basin, Eastern Mediterranean

The U.S Geological Survey is currently re-assessing the potential for undiscovered oil and gas<br>resources in priority basins worldwide, including the Levant Basin. For this study, the Levant Basin is<br>defined to the east by the Levant transform system, to the north by the Cyprus thrust system, to the<br>west by the Eratosthenes terrain, and to the south by an assessment boundary with the Nile Delta<br>Province, which was also assessed for undiscovered oil and gas resources. The Mesozoic-Cenozoic<br>stratigraphic section in the Levant Basin is as much as 10 km thick and two main petroleum systems<br>were defined within this stratigraphic section, as most of the volumes of oil and gas probably<br>originated within these systems. The Mesozoic Composite Petroleum System includes potential and<br>hypothetical oil and gas source rocks of Triassic, Middle to Upper Jurassic, Lower Cretaceous, and<br>Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian-Turonian, Santonian) age. Assessment Units (AU) within the Mesozoic<br>Composite Petroleum System that were assessed for undiscovered resources include the Carbonate<br>Reservoirs AU, which encompasses limestone and dolomite reservoirs of Jurassic through Miocene age<br>formed in reef, fore-reef, back-reef, and deepwater environments and are largely in stratigraphic traps,<br>and the Clastic Reservoirs AU which includes shelf-edge delta, incised valley fill, confined and<br>unconfined slope systems, and basin-floor fan reservoirs in stratigraphic and structural traps. The<br>Neogene Biogenic Gas System includes all source rocks in the Neogene that contributed to known postsalt<br>occurrences of biogenic gas. The Neogene Biogenic Gas System includes the Neogene Reservoirs<br>AU that encompasses clastic reservoirs of alluvial fan, fluvial, incised valley fills, shelf-edge delta, slope<br>systems, and basin-floor fan origin in both structural and stratigraphic traps. Each of these AUs was<br>assessed for potential undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources in this frontier basin.