Wilson Cycles and the Opening of the North Atlantic & Norwegian – Greenland Sea

The second day of the 3P Arctic Conference & Exhibition is 30 September. Session chairs Victoria Pease and Andrel Khudoley will kick off the session by welcoming attendees and then introducing session one speakers, who will be speaking on Arctic Orogens and Basement Rocks Beneath Sedimentary Basins. Chris Parry, E.ON Exploration & Production, will be the fifth speaker to take the session one platform on Wednesday.

Abstract: Wilson Cycles and the Opening of the North Atlantic & Norwegian – Greenland Sea

The North Atlantic Ocean has opened and closed at least twice in its long history, recording two complete Wilson Cycles, named after the plate tectonics pioneer J. Tuzo Wilson, who described the periodic opening and closing of ocean basins. The repeated breakup and subsequent assembly of a supercontinent makes use of pre-existing basement weaknesses, which is the concept behind the term “tectonic inheritance”. The Fennoscandian shield structural grain is controlled by a megafracture pattern imposed during Proterozoic time, with major NW-SE to ENE-WSW lineaments originating even earlier in the Archeaen. These have been subsequently re-used during the alternating compression and extension episodes of the supercontinents Wilson Cycles and have very important controls on the succeeding sedimentary section and resulting petroleum systems, which will be discussed.