Tectonic Heat Flow Modelling for Basin Maturation: Methods and Applications

J.D. Van Wees¹*, F. Van Bergen¹, S. Cloetingh², and O. Abbink^1
1TNO, Netherlands
²Vrije Universiteit, Netherlands
*[email protected]

Basement heat flow is one of the most influential parameters on basin maturity. Although rapid progress has been made in the development of tectonic models capable of modelling the thermal consequences of basin formation, these models are hardly used in basin modelling. Consequently heat flow is considered a user input, often marked by a constant value without temporal or spatial variation, resulting in erroneous maturation assessment. To better predict heat flows we have developed a multi-1D probabilistic tectonic heat-flow model, incorporating a variety of tectonic scenarios (including rifting, underplating and mantle upwelling). The model is capable of inversion of burial histories, calibrated to temperature and maturity data. Calibration and sensitivity analysis is done through Monte Carlo sampling analysis using an experimental design technique for computational efficiency. The model has been applied for a range of basin settings including the Arabian Peninsula and its offshore margins. For (frontier) deep-water basins, we showed that basin maturation is significantly higher and occurs much earlier when adopting tectonic heat flow instead of a constant heat flow extrapolated from shallow-water and onshore wells. For mature basins, we showed that tectonic heat-flow scenarios considerably aid in identifying and understanding underexplored play systems, by putting temporal and spatial constraints on paleo-heat flow. In particular modelling results indicated that the interplay of rifting, underplating, inversion and (Zagros) foreland formation, has resulted in much stronger temporal and spatial tectonic heat-flow variations than hitherto assumed.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90077©2008 GEO 2008 Middle East Conference and Exhibition, Manama, Bahrain