Basin Analysis and Modeling of the Burial, Thermal and Maturation Histories in Sedimentary Basins

This book is devoted to the field of basin analysis, and in particular to the one- and two-dimensional modeling of the burial, thermal and maturation histories of sedimentary basins, in the context of evaluating their hydrocarbon potential. New contributions to basin modeling are elaborated in this work and applied to continental basins worldwide, including East European basins (DnieperDonets, Volga-Ural, South Barents), West Siberian basin, North African basins, basins of passive continental margins in South America, Australian Antarctica and back-arc basins in the Philippine and Bering seas. Particular attention is paid to specific features of basin evolution, including the compaction of sediments deposited at a variable rate, erosion of sedimentary strata and basement, intrusive and hydrothermal activity, thermal and tectonic activation, reactivation of the basement, effect of climate variations on temperature, heat flow distributions in basins, and contribution of these processes in the history of organic matter maturation and realization of basin's hydrocarbon potential. Alternative methods for calculation of the basin's tectonic subsidence are applied to refine the sequence of tectonic and thermal events in the history of the modeled sedimentary basin. Specific features of thermal regime formation in the sedimentary basins of high latitudes are considered in detail including analysis of formation and degradation of permafrost and gas hydrates zones. A new approach is applied in the fitting procedure for determining the kinetic reaction parameters for hydrocarbon generation, applying algorithms with a variable frequency factor and integrating the geological stage of organic matter maturation in order to better estimate hydrocarbon output.