EAGE Conference on Geology and Petroleum Geology of the Mediterranean and Circum-Mediterranean Basins

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Seismic surveys in Central-Eastern Sicily are located mostly where hydrocarbon exploration is concentrated, namely Hyblean area to the South and the Nebrodi range to the North (Fig 1). The recent acquisition of three regional seismic profiles in the central Sicily created a link between these two areas. This has supplied a lot of informations on the structural setting of this part of the Sicilian thrust belt, in comhination with well log, surface stratigraphic and structural data, magnetometric and gravirnetric data and allowed us to define a new geo-structural model for this area.

The study concerns the magmatic rocks found in the various structural domains of Tunisia. The recent deposit, mineralogical, geochimical, isotopic and radiochronological data permit the definition of the spatio-temporal distribution of the various magmatic phases, their importance, the mode of their formation, their petrological characteristics as well as the geodynamic contexts.

The USGS recently completed an assessment of the conventionally recoverable undiscovered oil and gas resources of the world . Of the 246 assessment units in the world, 88 were identified a s being, at least in part, in extensional tectonic or rilt areas. An additional; 21 assessment units veere identified as being in solely extensional areas.

The aim of the study was to obtain a reliable image of the subsurface, in order to properly evaluate the residual hydrocarbon potential of the Ras Garra Development Lease.

Ostrucod faunas are widely used for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, because of their abundant and high diversity throughout geological history, and their occurrence in a wide environmental spectrum such as fresh, brackish water, marine and even rarely terrestrial habites.

The Southern Apenmines Thrust Belt (SATB) is a prolific petroleum province in Italy. In this work, we reconstruct its structural evolution since the Messinian and the timing of hydrocarbon generation and expulsion, integrating geological and geochemical constraints.

This paper describes a methodology to evaluate a petroleum system in fold-and-thrustbelts. This methodology is based on the reconstruction of the structural evolution on a regional cross-section and on the modelling of the thermal regime at present time and through geological time. The onset of hydrocarbon generation and expulsion from source rocks into traps, resulting from the temperature history and the kinetics of the kerogens can be investigated. The modelling accounts for the changes in the composition of hydrocarbons during generation and expulsion from the source rocks and may be instrumental to predict the global composition of trapped hydrocarbons in developing structures. This methodology was applied to many history cases from well known petroleum provinces of fold and thrustbelts environments. In many case, initial geologic interpretations can significantly be improved by reconstructing the past thermal regimes and maturity evolution computed from the result of a geometric and kinematic forward evolution on a regional cross-section.

A new structural restoration and forward modelling flexural slip technique for three-dimensional (3D) digital models has been developed. The flexural slip method preserves volume in 3D, line length (of the template surface and layers parallel to this surface) in a given unfolding direction and orthogonal bed thickness. The model surfaces need not be parallel to each other. These constraints allow 3D fault-propagation, fault-bend and detachment folds to be restored or forward modelled.

A great contribution in the study of fault-related folds in foreland belts derives from kinematic and geometric models. This technique proved efficient both in the interpretastion and balancing of the tectonic structures.