Global Infracambrian petroleum systems: a review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract This review covers global uppermost Neoproterozoic–Cambrian petroleum systems using published information and the results of studies undertaken by the Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA) on the Neoproterozoic Officer Basin. Both production and hydrocarbon (HC) shows sourced from, and reservoired in, uppermost Neoproterozoic–Cambrian successions occur worldwide, and these provide ample incentive for continuing exploration for these older petroleum systems. However, the risks of charge volume, timing of generation–migration v. trap formation and preservation of accumulation are significantly higher than in conventional Phanerozoic petroleum systems. Therefore, the location and assessment of preserved HC accumulations in such old petroleum systems presents a significant exploration challenge. Organic-rich metamorphosed Proterozoic successions of SE Greenland, the Ukrainian Krivoy Roy Series, the Canadian Upper Huronian Series and the oil shales of the Russian Onega Basin are known as the world's oldest overmature petroleum source rocks. The oldest live oil has been recovered from the McArthur Basin of Australia ( c . 1.4 Ga; Ga is 10 9 years), followed by the Nonesuch oil of Michigan. Numerous other petroleum shows have been reported from Australia, Canada, China, India, Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, Oman, Pakistan, Venezuela and the USA. These demonstrate that generation and migration of Proterozoic petroleum has occurred worldwide. The Siberian Lena–Tunguska province, the Russian Volga–Ural region and the Middle Eastern south Oman petroleum fields exemplify the productive potential of uppermost Neoproterozoic–Cambrian successions, where petroleum generation, migration and trapping were either late in the geological history (Palaeozoic–Mesozoic, Oman) or where accumulations have been preserved beneath highly effective super-seals (Lena–Tunguska). The total resource potential of the Lena–Tunguska petroleum province is estimated to be 2000 Mbbl (million barrels) oil and 83 Tcf (trillion cubic feet) gas. The equivalent proven and probable reserves derived from Neoproterozoic–Early Cambrian source rocks and trapped in Late Neoproterozoic (Ediacaran), Palaeozoic and Mesozoic reservoirs in Oman are at least 12 bbbl (billion barrels) of oil and an undetermined volume of gas. The recovery of 12 Mcf (million cubic feet) of Precambrian gas from the Ooraminna-1 well in the Amadeus Basin in 1963, together with the occurrence of numerous HC shows within the Australian Centralian Superbasin, triggered the initial exploration for Proterozoic hydrocarbons in Australia. This included exploration in the Neoproterozoic Officer Basin, which is reviewed in this paper as a case study. Minor oil shows and numerous bitumen occurrences have been reported from the 24 petroleum exploration wells drilled in the Officer Basin to date, indicating the existence of a Neoproterozoic petroleum system. However, the potential of the Neoproterozoic petroleum system in the vast underexplored Officer Basin, with its sparse well control, remains unverified, but may be significant, as may that of many other ‘Infracambrian’ basins around the world.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; both teacher heads agree on what is shown here.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".