Norwegian-Russian collaboration on deep seismic studies of the crust and upper mantle in the Barents Sea

We will establish a closer collaboration between Norwegian and Russian scientists in relation to one of the key research tasks focusing on the crust and upper mantle structure within the ongoing PETROMAKS project 'Petroleum-related regional studies of the Barents Sea region' (PETROBAR). The main goal of PETROBAR is to enhance the understanding of fundamental, large-scale, processes behind sedimentary basin formation and evolution in the Barents Sea region and their impact on the petroleum systems. The pri ncipal objective is to refine our knowledge about the crustal structure in the Barents Sea and to understand the link between deep structures and basin formation/evolution. In particular, we want to: (1) Compile all deep seismic data in the Barents Sea re gion and perform an integrated analysis of seismic, gravity and magnetic data in order to better constrain the Barents Sea crustal structure and its relation to the deep basin configuration, and to improve our knowledge on the tectono-magmatic evolution o f the Barents Sea. (2) Obtain rock properties for the sedimentary cover sequences and the basement- and mantle layers of the Barents Sea region from the wide-angle seismic data. (3) Constrain the coupling of possible crust and mantle heterogeneities and s tructural inheritance in the Barents Sea and constrain onshore-offshore deep crustal correlations. (4) Incorporate the final crustal transects into the 3D Barents Sea model in order to update, refine and provide this as a basic work tool for the PETROBAR project members. The new data and resulting models will represent important constraints for solving other tasks in the PETROBAR project (e.g. Late Paleozoic subsidence, Mesozoic magmatism and Cenozoic uplift/erosion) including 2D tectonic/geodynamic model ling. The data analysis and synthesis will be performed in close collaboration with these activities.