Suprabasins – sedimentary response to growth of major extensional fault systems

Suprabasins dekker geologisk forskning i et tverrfaglig samarbeid mellom norsk og internasjonal akademia og industri. Målet er nye tektoniske modeller for utvikling av norsk kontinentalsokkel, med kunnskapsbygging rettet mot Utsira-, Loppa- og Frøya-regionene. Konseptuelt orienterte studier belyser forholdet mellom forkastninger og moderne samt eldre bassenger, med vekt på landskapsutvikling og avsetningssystemer. Arbeidet benytter seismiske data og borekjerner, samt analyse av sammenlignbare sedimentære bassenger. En betydelig utdanningskomponent dekker 4 doktorgrads-studenter, 4 postdoktor/forskere og 9 masterstudenter. Referanseresultater inkluderer 35 fagfellevurderte tidsskriftartikler, med ytterligere 10 artikler forventet; og 160 konferanse- og partnerskapspresentasjoner.

Benchmark results include: 34 peer-review journal articles, with additional four currently in review and additional 5-8 articles expected; nearly 40 conference presentations; 14 partnership conferences and seminars and 35 exclusive industry seminars, all with multiple talks; 11 popular science events; 5 steering committee meetings for tuning of activity; 19 field-work campaigns (despite pandemic close-down); education of 4 PhD students and supervision of 9 master students that have been attached to the project. The project has offered comprehensive competence building; by educating the mentioned 4 PhD’s of which one has defended, one PhD defends within weeks, and with the rest expectedly defending in 2024. In addition, mentoring of 4 Postdocs/Researchers that now apply their state-art competence in industry (3 persons) and academia (1 person) offer leading knowledge transfer. In total 9 Masters have also been educated in the project (9 monographs). This is a new generation of geoscientists that is fundamental in maintaining and developing the highly skilled workforce in industry and federal organisations. The broad approach and major outreach efforts (full partnership meetings and exclusive single-company workshops) of the project has allowed all industry partners to harvest datasets and knowledge, impacting their in-house work and strategic decisions. Accordingly, better decisions around exploration already have and, in the future, will save both federal and company funds. Examples on more direct impact come from work on the Johan Sverdrup Field, from which production strategies have been considered around sedimentary architecture outlined in Puig et al. (2023b). Exploration drilling on the Frøya High was calibrated with studies of Gresseth et al. (2023a,b).

Rifts and rifted margins contain faults with displacements much larger (>10 km) than the half-graben bounding faults normally considered in rift basin studies. The down-dip and lateral evolution of these structures, and the syntectonic basins juxtaposed with them, are only partly understood. The Suprabasin project targets rift-margin highs with internal and fringing basins. Focus is on the development and modification of extensional basins linked to major, long-lived fault zones, with scopes into sedimentary architecture and associated distribution of reservoirs, footwall rebound controlling sedimentary fairways, landscape denudation as temporal sediment source, and burial history of basins. Proposed work is tailored to challenges of the prolific Frøya, Utsira and Loppa highs, which represent large, temporally constrained uplifts behind major rift-bounding faults. Research scopes employ the most recent advances in tectonostratigraphic research and are developed in close dialogue with the industry. Petromaks2 compliance are found in exploration and increased recovery, including Arctic areas. There are strong elements of researcher recruitment, industry involvement, optimal management, and user participation as well as interdisciplinary and international cooperation. The objectives of the Suprabasin proposal cover knowledge needs for prolific petroleum systems of the Norwegian Continental Shelf; verified for some parts of the shelf but underexplored for other areas. Recent discoveries of the Utsira, Loppa and Frøya highs, coupled with exploration and production challenges, require new insight and novel approaches to reach the area’s full economic potential. We will unravel internal basin geometries of the Utsira, Loppa and Frøya highs, in a fully integrated analysis of the sedimentological, stratigraphical and structural setting, spanning across to burial history; to constrain timing and thermal maturation in relation to play analysis.