Greenland-Norway Project 2012-2014
Exposures of Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata in East Greenland, provide valuable insights into the evolution of the offshore areas of Mid Norway and the NE Greenland Shelf. For the NE Greenland Shelf this information is particularly important because of the lack of well control on seismic sections. There are five main elements to this phase of the project: Mid Permian tectonism; Triassic basin evolution; Late Triassic-Mid Jurassic changes in reservoir quality; Late Cretaceous basin evolution and Eocene-Oligocene basin evolution.
Main Objectives
- Structural inheritance of the Mesozoic basins of East Greenland: The post-Caledonian succession of East Greenland is widely regarded to have been deposited in a series of rift basins. Structural relationships across the unconformity between the Early and Late Permian successions do, however, not appear consistent with a purely extensional origin. This unconformity will be studied through fieldwork and its origins explored.
- Triassic basin evolution: Provenance work will examine drainage patterns and sediment sources through the study of sandstone samples from Mid Norway, the North Sea, the West of Shetland and East Greenland. This work will help predict the occurrence of potential reservoir intervals. Fieldwork will investigate a Mid-Late Triassic rift event and facies trends within this unit northwards from Jameson Land. Integrated logging of sections both sedimentologically and with a gamma ray spectrometer will allow better comparison of borehole sequences and outcrop sections. Lastly rhenium-osmium dating of the organic rich units in the succession will be used to examine the regional development of source rock units.
- Triassic-Jurassic transition: There is a marked improvement in sandstone reservoir qualities between the Late Triassic and Mid Jurassic in East Greenland. This improvement will be quantified by investigating the reservoir characteristics of sandstone samples.
- Cretaceous depositional systems: There is a switch from local to more distant sediment sources through the Cretaceous succession of the Traill Ø region. The reason for this switch is not well understood but is important for understanding reservoir development in the Vøring and Møre basins. The change will be investigated through provenance, petrographic and biostratigraphic work on East Greenland samples. Work will continue on Mid-Norway wells.
- Eocene to Oligocene evolution of East Greenland: Outcrops of intra- and supra-basaltic sediments in East Greenland provide important insights into the Tertiary evolution of the region and potential analogues for offshore reservoirs. This work will investigate the Kap Dalton Eocene-Oligocene succession, the setting of basalt extrusion, basalt-sediment interaction and the potential for reservoir development in post-basaltic sequences.
Project length: 24 months from February 2012.
Contact: Andrew Whitham
Reports Issued in this Project
- Reservoir properties of the supra-volcanic units of the Kap Dalton Group, Kap Dalton, East Greenland Ref: CASP.EGS.GNP2012-14.140
- New structural and sedimentological constraints on the Late Carboniferous-Early Triassic evolution of Schuchert Dal and a stratigraphic review of the Early Permian-Early Triassic succession of Jameson Land and Scoresby Land Ref: CASP.EGS.GNP2012-14.139
- A compilation of the East Greenland accumulated sandstone petrographic data, Late Carboniferous to Tertiary Ref: CASP.EGS.GNP2012-14.138
- Mapping of the Devondal Region: Implications for the Permian to Late Triassic evolution of East Greenland Ref: CASP.EGS.GNP2012-14.137
- East Greenland field activities Spring 2012 (including a review of the Jurassic stratigraphy of the Jameson Land Basin) Ref: CASP.EGS.GNP2012-14.136
- The heavy mineral provenance characteristics of moraine and river sediments in East Greenland between 70 and 77°N Ref: CASP.EGS.GNP2012-14.135
