Washington

The Salinas Basin is a strike-slip basin in central California with stratigraphy dominantly composed of Miocene Monterey Formation. Despite a long history of oil production, aspects of petroleum system development in the basin remain poorly understood. Of the seven main oil fields, one—San Ardo field—has produced more than 500 million bbl of oil or 99% of all oil found in the basin.

The Vizcaino fore-arc basin accumulated approximately 4 km (∼13,000 ft) of upper Albian–middle Eocene siliciclastic marine sedimentary rocks derived from the Peninsular Ranges in Baja California. Data from eight exploratory wells document the micropaleontological content and lithological characteristics of these rocks.

Recent oil discoveries in an Aptian–Cenomanian clinothem in Arctic Alaska demonstrate the potential for hundred-million- to billion-barrel oil accumulations in Nanushuk Formation topsets and Torok Formation foresets–bottomsets. Oil-prone source rocks and the clinothem are draped across the Barrow arch, a structural hinge between the Colville foreland basin and Beaufort Sea rifted margin.

The purpose of this work is to identify genetic affinities among 48 crude oil samples from the onshore and offshore Santa Maria basins. A total of 21 source-related biomarker and stable carbon isotope ratios among the samples were assessed to assure that they were unaffected by secondary processes.