Basin analysis: Principles and application to petroleum play assessment / Бассейновый анализ: принципы и применение для оценки нефтегазоносности

Sedimentary basins are regions of prolonged subsidence of the Earth’s surface. The driving mechanisms of subsidence are related to processes originating within the relatively rigid, cooled thermal boundary layer of the Earth known as the lithosphere and from the flow of the mantle beneath. The lithosphere is composed of a number of plates that are in motion with respect to each other. Sedimentary basins therefore exist in a background environment of plate motion and mantle flow.
The Earth’s interior is composed of a number of compositional and rheological zones. The main compositional zones are between crust, mantle and core, the crust containing relatively low-density rocks overlain by a discontinuous sedimentary cover. The mechanical and rheological divisions do not necessarily match the compositional zones. A fundamental rheological boundary is between the lithosphere and the underlying asthenosphere. The lithosphere is sufficiently rigid to comprise a number of relatively coherent plates. Its base is marked by a characteristic isotherm (c.1600K) and is commonly termed the thermal lithosphere, which encloses a mechanical lithosphere. The upper portion of the thermal lithosphere is able to store elastic stresses over long time scales and is referred to as the elastic lithosphere. The continental lithosphere has a strength profile with depth that reflects its composition, temperature and water content. A weak, ductile zone exists in the lower crust below a brittle–ductile transition, but the strength of the underlying lithospheric mantle is uncertain. The oceanic lithosphere lacks this low-strength layer, its strength increasing with depth to the brittle–ductile transition in the upper mantle.

The relative motion of plates produces deformation, magmatism and seismicity concentrated along oceanic plate boundaries. Continental lithosphere is more complex, exhibiting seismicity and deformation far from plate boundaries, and with a heat flow and geotherm that is strongly influenced by radiogenic self-heating. Plate boundary forces and elevation contrasts strongly influence the state of stress of lithospheric plates.
Sedimentary basins have been classified principally in terms of the type of lithospheric substratum (i.e. continental, oceanic, transitional), their position with respect to the plate boundary (intracontinental, plate margin) and type of plate motion nearest to the basin (divergent, convergent, transform). The formative mechanisms of sedimentary basins fall into a small number of categories, although all mechanisms may operate during the evolution of a basin:
• Isostatic consequences of changes in crustal/lithospheric thickness, such as caused mechanically by lithospheric stretching, or purely thermally, as in the cooling of previously upwelled asthenosphere in regions of lithospheric stretching.
• Loading (and unloading) of the lithosphere causes a deflection or flexural deformation and therefore subsidence (and uplift), as in foreland basins.
• Viscous flow of the mantle causes non-permanent subsidence/uplift known as dynamic topography, which can most easily be recognised in the domal uplifts of the ocean floor at volcanic hotspots.
From the point of view of lithospheric processes there are two major groups of basins: (i) basins due to lithospheric stretching and subsequent cooling, belonging to the rift–drift suite; and (ii) basins formed primarily by flexure of continental and oceanic lithosphere. <...>