Authors: Ruben Arismendy (presenter), Chajid Kairuz, ANH Consultants; José Osorno, Carlos Rey, ANH Colombia
The convergent boundaries of the Caribbean plate with the surrounding plates are making a complex structural configuration, associated with strike-slip faulting, compressive folding, lithospheric flexure, and collision zones. Additionally, the basement in the Caribbean Offshore is defined by a paleo-topography formed by extensional structures that caused grabens, hemigrabens, and horsts associated with the rifting phase during the Early Jurassic.
The reprocessed 2D seismic data in 2015 (ANH), included four offshore basins: Guajira offshore, Sinu offshore, Uraba, and the Southern area of the Colombian basin. This study used 2D seismic , 50 wells, gravimetric and magnetometric methods to identify regional structural features. These methods allow the regional interpretation of depocenters, identify structural paleo-highs in the basement, and major structural features.
The primary regional structurès conditioning the structural provinces styles are Santa Marta´s Fault, Oca´s Fault, Cuisa´s Fault, the Caribbean Southern Deformed Belt, and the Hess Escarpment, the Panama Northern Deformed Belt, and Sinu´s Folded Belt.
This study aims to understand the structural configuration of the Colombian Caribbean offshore basins and describe its provinces according to each structural style as a tool to evaluate the prospectivity of the area. As a result, the Colombian Caribbean is divide into six regional structural provinces, according to the predominant structural deformation: province I, Colombian Basin; province II, Guajira´s Deformed Belt; province III, Guajira offshore (transitional zone); province IV, Magdalena Delta; province V, Sinu Offshore; Province VI, Gulf of Uraba.
Bio:
Ruben Arismendy, ANH Consultant
Ruben earned a BSc in Geological Engineering from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and a MSc in Basin & Petroleum Systems from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
With 15 years of experience in the industry, he currently is ANH Consultant, and Co-Founder and Manager at Neoil Exploration, responsible for both technical and management activities.
Ruben is a member of AAPG and ACGGP.