E-Book Content
ANTARC TICA AS AN EXPLORATION FRONTIER- HY DROCARBON PO TENTIAL, GEOLOGY, AND H AZAR DS
Edited by
Bill St. John
AAPG Studies in Geology #31
Published by The American Association of Petroleum Geologists Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.A.
About the Editor Bill St. John was born in 1932 in an oil boom town, Wink, Texas, and grew up in oil camps around Olney, Kamay, and Wichita Falls, Texas. He served in the U.S . Marine Corps from 1951 to 1954, including Korea in 1953. Bill received a B.S. degree in 1958 and an M.A. degree in geology in 1960 from the University of Texas (Austin). He worked in Libya, Mauritania, and Senegal from 1960 to 1963, returned to the University of Texas in 1963 and received a Ph.D. degree in 1965. From 1965 through 1972 he worked for Exxon in Norway, England, and Morocco, and in Houston, Texas, where he did international basin analysis. In 1973 he joined an independent in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as international manager; that job
evolved into his becoming president of Agri-Petco International. In 1981 he moved again-to Houston, as President of Primary Fuels,
Inc., a w holly owned subsidiary of H o uston Industries Incorporated. Primary Fuels was sold in 1989 and Bill began consulting internationally, most recently as Technical Advisor to the Ethiopian Institute of Geological Surveys, Ministry of Mines and Energy, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His career has been divided between international basins studies and explor ation and production management. He has worked in or visited more than 40 countries during his 28-year oil industry career.
Foreword The Symposium on Antarctica, presented at the 1987 annual meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, resulted from a recommendation by the AAPG Marine Geology Committee in 1986. At that time, several Antarctica symposia had been held but none had directly involved the members of the nongovernment petroleum community. Research and interest in Antarctica had been the private domain of geographic explorers, academic institutions, government agencies, and national oil companies. It was time to stake a claim. Most of the papers in the present volume were given at the symposium; however, a few were solicited later to fill in what were believed to be critical gaps in the original program. All of the papers are o r i ented toward the hydrocarbon potential of Antarctica. Contents include regional seismic surveys involving tectonic and stratigraphic interpretations extending from the Adelie Coast margin (Wannesson), over the Ross Sea (Cooper et al.) and Bellingshausen Sea, through the Bransfield Strait (Gamboa and Maldonado, and Jeffers and Anderson) and along the northern Antarctic Peninsula (Anderson et al.). Another paper compares in detail the Mesozoic sedimentary basins of Antarctica and includes source rock analyses (Macdonald and Butterworth). A tectonic synthesis of Antarctica and the surrounding southern seas is presented (Royer et al.). Hazards to petroleum exploration and production offshore Antarctica are described (Reid and Anderson). Specific source rock information from a single borehole is given (Collen and Barrett). A solicited post-symposium paper inventories the relevant offshore seismic surveys that could be used to make a regional offshore seismic interpretation (Behrendt). The convener I editor and the authors trust that the papers presented here will serve to advance the geologic knowledge of this last truly frontier exploration area, and that they will stimulate further interest and research by the petroleum industry.
-Bill St. John
Chapter 1
Evolution and Hydrocarbon Potential of the Northern Antarctic Peninsula Continental Shelf John B. Anderson Peter G. Pope Mark A. Thomas
Department of Geology and Geophysics Rice University U.S.A.
Houston, Texas,
ABSTR