Back to search

NORRUSS-Nordområdene og Russland

The Permian/Triassic evolution of the Timan-Pechora and Barents Sea Basins

Alternative title: Perm-Trias utviklingen av Timan-Pechora og Barentshavet

Awarded: NOK 3.0 mill.

The Permian/Triassic transition, about 250 million years ago, is characterized by the largest mass- extinction of marine and terrestrial biota in earth history. There is a growing scientific consensus that this biotic crisis was linked to a series of major volcanic eruptions, the Siberian Traps. However, direct evidence for a causal relationship between the volcanic successions in Siberia and the marine and terrestrial extinction events with is rather limited. In collaboration with the VNIIOkeangeologia in St Petersburg rock samples from 4 cores in the Timan Pechora basin with the Permian-Triassic boundary were analyzed for the palynofacies, depositional environment and the biostratigraphic age / Carbon isotope stratigraphy. The Permian Triassic transition was also studied in Finnmark platform cores 7128/12-U-01 for high resolution biostratigraphy (based on palynology) and chemostratigraphy based on Carbon isotopes of organic biomarkers (n-alkanes). The biomarker analysis allows the separation of the terrestrial from the marine component of the Carbon isotope composition of sedimentary organic matter.

Late Permian-Early Triassic times cover an important phase in the Barents Sea basin evolution. It is characterized by regional subsidence marking an end to Late Carboniferous-Early Permian carbonate deposition and the large accommodation space formed was filled by prograding siliciclastic systems mainly sourced from the uplifted Urals in the southeast. The project is a new Norwegian-British-Russian joint venture with the aim to improve our understanding of the processes behind this important phase in the regional basin evolution, we need better constraints on their timing, causes and implications. Key topics to be addressed include: 1) When was the onset of the regional subsidence (mid-Permian or towards end Permian)? 2) Are there any relationships to the Siberian Traps which formed at the Permian-Triassic transition? 3) What caused this regional subsidence and how did these processes affect the temperature history of the basin? Exploration success in the Central Barents Sea may be dependent on petroleum system(s) of Triassic age. Triassic source rocks are proven in the parts of the western Barents Sea - what about farther east? Finding good reservoir sands in the Triassic prograding system has so far been a challenge in the western Barents Sea - is the system more sand-prone farther east? We suggest to establish a fine resolution correlation of PTB interval from the Norwegian sector eastwards to the Russian continental shelf including the Ural region by using an integrated approach combining palyno -, C-isotope -, cyclo - and seismic sequence stratigraphy. The generated stratigraphic, palaeoenvironmental and palaeogeographic data will be used in geophysical models that simulate the tectonic and thermal evolution of the sedimentary basins and evaluate t heir hydrocarbon resource potential.

Publications from Cristin

No publications found

No publications found

Funding scheme:

NORRUSS-Nordområdene og Russland