Course Content
The Gulf of Mexico (GOM) basin is one of the richest hydrocarbon basins of the world, with estimated hydrocarbon endowment exceeding 140 BBOE. The foundation of such a rich endowment is the unique confluence of sedimentary processes, ranging from a continental-scale drainage system network, robust depositional systems, unusual extrabasinal perturbations, and long-lived salt tectonics. This combination of factors has allowed the GOM to continue to “reinvent itself”, generating new exploration plays both onshore and offshore, suprasalt to subsalt, fluvial to deep-water, conventional and unconventional reservoirs. The surprising emergence of several new exploration plays and new ideas on the basin history demonstrates that we have much more to learn and harvest from this natural laboratory of sedimentary processes.
New ideas are leading to a reevaluation of the framework history, including how the Chixculub impact event at the end of the Cretaceous altered the deep Gulf of Mexico seascape and set up subsequent deep-water deposition. New models have been formulated for the timing and distribution of salt deposition and sea floor spreading.
Our understanding of the interaction of sediment and salt since the Mesozoic continues to evolve. The GOM has also provided dramatic improvements in the Neogene chronostratigraphy resulting from interpretation of new biostratigraphic data from deepwater wells.
Wells drilled in the deep subsalt province have altered our view of the Mesozoic source to sink depositional pathways, leading us to question older North American paleogeographic maps. A recent reported hydrocarbon discovery at El Perdido, located in the Mexican deep-water, has increased the Paleogene (Wilcox) play extent to the south.
Onshore, exploitation of Type II source rocks as shale gas plays in the Jurassic Haynesville and Cretaceous Eagle Ford have generated significant drilling activity and this in turn has stimulated a reevaluation of interpreted Mesozoic source rock distributions, including offshore areas of the Gulf of Mexico. Our perspective on the eastern Gulf of Mexico potential is likely to change as well, given new and ongoing deep crustal imaging work in this area.
Brief Outline
- Introduction and goals
- Reasons for optimism / new potential
- Geological framework
- Structural history
- Sedimentological history
- Chixculub impact event – consequences
- Timing and distribution of salt deposition and sea floor spreading
- Interaction of sediment and salt since the Mesozoic
- Biostratigraphy
- Subsalt factors
- Source rock analyses
- Deep crustal imaging
- New potential
- Conclusions
Structure of the E-Symposium
Each e-symposium consists of one-hour live e-symposium, along with material for one full day of independent study. The live portion will be followed by a full day of independent study (not a live event). The one-hour live e-symposium can be accessed from any computer anywhere in the world using a high-speed internet connection. After the event is over, you will receive via email information about accessing the asynchronous segment (not live) which consists of a recording of the event, your independent study materials, to be accessed and studied at any time. You will be able to email responses to the readings, along with your study question answers for CEU credit (if you sign up for the extended package).