Provenance Reconstruction for Clastic Reservoirs in South Atlantic Margin Basins Offshore South America

Over the past decades, Provenance Exploration Consultancy has developed in-house a provenance reconstruction tool, the source part of source-to-sink studies. It is an important tool in the reduction of exploration risk. It predicts the location and volume and finally, the quality of clastic reservoirs. We have successfully applied our tool in multiple exploration studies worldwide for NOC’s and IOC’s. In a nutshell Provenance Reconstruction involves detailed geological (facies), morphotectonic, drainage, denudation analyses, supported by subsurface interpretations on gravity and magnetic data, provide the framework for paleo drainage, -geological and -geographical integrated reconstructions, which ultimately provide detailed information on the petrography, mineralogy, and petrophysical properties of reservoirs. In this contribution, we will present examples of our recently completed provenance studies for Venezuela, Guyanas-Suriname, and Brazil to Argentina basins at various time slices since the Cretaceous to Recent to demonstrate how sand supply and -routes to the South American South Atlantic margin basins have changed over time.