GPlates - A Novel Exploration Tool

Plate reconstructions have been an integral part of petroleum-related research since the advent of the plate tectonic paradigm. The GPlates consortium grew from the need to create a new plate motion model that can be linked to commonly used geological dat abases and to geodynamic models. GPlates will be far more than a software tool. All relevant geodata from Earth will eventually be compiled, evaluated and implemented as part of the system. Ultimately, GPlates will display models for plate motions and pla te/mantle dynamics, track the time/location history of point, line and raster data, and parameterise margins undergoing strike-slip, compressive, or extensional deformation. The insights developed through the use of GPlates will be important with regard t o finding, understanding and extracting more of the world's offshore petroleum resources. GPlates models will provide exploration geologists with additional input for their plays, allowing them to test plate tectonically derived geothermal gradients and a pplying calculated paleobathymetries to basin circulation models. As petroleum reserves in the North Sea and the chances for discovery of large fields elsewhere is diminishing, GPlates may help exploration in national-international frontier areas where ex ploration is pushed to the limit of the continental margins. Industry exploration benefits include estimate of plate tectonic scale stretching factors, location of thermal hot spots through time with implication for hydrocarbon maturation and migration, dynamic topography with information about which areas are likely to have been below sea-level, uplift/subsidence rates, paleobathymetry and consequent ocean and basin circulation models, improved locations of emergent land masses (provenance) and depositi onal environment/facies, latitude prediction for ancient plates and determination of source rock potential, and plate kinematic modeling and deformation of tectonic plates.