Articles | Volume 11, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-1865-2020
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the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
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https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-1865-2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
21 Oct 2020
Research article |
| 21 Oct 2020
| 21 Oct 2020
Inversion tectonics: a brief petroleum industry perspective
OMV Upstream, Exploration, 1020 Vienna, Austria
Didier Arbouille
IHS Markit, Geneva, Switzerland
Zsolt Schléder
OMV Upstream, Exploration, 1020 Vienna, Austria
Tamás Tóth
GeoMega Ltd, Budapest, Hungary
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Tectonic processes are complex and often difficult to understand due to the limitations of surface or subsurface data. One such process is inversion tectonics, which means that an area initially developed in an extension (such as the opening of an ocean) is reversed to compression (the process leading to mountain building). In this research, we use a laboratory method (analogue modelling), and with the help of a sandbox, we try to better understand structures (folds/faults) related to inversion.
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Many of the world's hydrocarbon resources are found in rifted sedimentary basins. Some rifts experience multiple phases of extension and inversion. This results in complicated oil and gas generation, migration, and entrapment histories. We present examples of basins in the Western Desert of Egypt and the western Black Sea that were inverted multiple times, sometimes separated by additional phases of extension. We then discuss how these complex deformation histories impact exploration campaigns.
Alexandra Tamas, Dan M. Tamas, Gabor Tari, Csaba Krezsek, Alexandru Lapadat, and Zsolt Schleder
Solid Earth, 14, 741–761, https://doi.org/10.5194/se-14-741-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/se-14-741-2023, 2023
Short summary
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Tectonic processes are complex and often difficult to understand due to the limitations of surface or subsurface data. One such process is inversion tectonics, which means that an area initially developed in an extension (such as the opening of an ocean) is reversed to compression (the process leading to mountain building). In this research, we use a laboratory method (analogue modelling), and with the help of a sandbox, we try to better understand structures (folds/faults) related to inversion.
Wout Krijgsman, Iuliana Vasiliev, Anouk Beniest, Timothy Lyons, Johanna Lofi, Gabor Tari, Caroline P. Slomp, Namik Cagatay, Maria Triantaphyllou, Rachel Flecker, Dan Palcu, Cecilia McHugh, Helge Arz, Pierre Henry, Karen Lloyd, Gunay Cifci, Özgür Sipahioglu, Dimitris Sakellariou, and the BlackGate workshop participants
Sci. Dril., 31, 93–110, https://doi.org/10.5194/sd-31-93-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/sd-31-93-2022, 2022
Short summary
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BlackGate seeks to MSP drill a transect to study the impact of dramatic hydrologic change in Mediterranean–Black Sea connectivity by recovering the Messinian to Holocene (~ 7 Myr) sedimentary sequence in the North Aegean, Marmara, and Black seas. These archives will reveal hydrographic, biotic, and climatic transitions studied by a broad scientific community spanning the stratigraphic, tectonic, biogeochemical, and microbiological evolution of Earth’s most recent saline and anoxic giant.
William Bosworth and Gábor Tari
Solid Earth, 12, 59–77, https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-59-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-59-2021, 2021
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Many of the world's hydrocarbon resources are found in rifted sedimentary basins. Some rifts experience multiple phases of extension and inversion. This results in complicated oil and gas generation, migration, and entrapment histories. We present examples of basins in the Western Desert of Egypt and the western Black Sea that were inverted multiple times, sometimes separated by additional phases of extension. We then discuss how these complex deformation histories impact exploration campaigns.
Related subject area
Subject area: The evolving Earth surface | Editorial team: Structural geology and tectonics, paleoseismology, rock physics, experimental deformation | Discipline: Structural geology
Deformation of intrasalt competent layers in different modes of salt tectonics
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Ancient evaporite sequences were deposited as interlayered rocksalt, other evaporites, and non-evaporite rocks that have enormous differences in strength. Whereas the ductile layers flow during deformation, strong layers are folded and/or torn apart, with the intrasalt deformation dependent on the mode and history of salt tectonics. This has important implications for accurately imaging and interpreting subsurface seismic data and for drilling wells through evaporite sequences.
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Short summary
Inversion tectonics has been studied in detail by both academic researchers and industry experts around the world for the last 30 years. Inverted structures provide important traps for petroleum exploration which can be categorized into two end-member modes of evolution. This paper attempts to provide a brief synoptic view of inversion tectonics from the point of view of the petroleum industry, emphasizing the main subsurface challenges of understanding this structural geology phenomenon.
Inversion tectonics has been studied in detail by both academic researchers and industry experts...
Special issue