Basin analysis and petroleum exploration offshore Brazil and the conjugate margins in Angola, Namibia and South Africa
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This session will focus on basin analysis studies discussing the Mesozoic continental rifting that led to breakup of the South Atlantic margins offshore Brazil, Angola, Namibia and South Africa. The petroleum exploration along these margins has resulted in the discovery of billions of barrels of oil in the deep water region of the salt basins, and there are significant exploration frontiers in the regions south of the Rio Grande Fracture Zone-Walvis Ridge, where source rocks have been characterized in the syn- rift, transitional and post-breakup sedimentary successions. Papers discussing models for extensional tectonics, fault interaction and linkage with transform faults, rift climax and continental breakup leading to the development of divergent margins by mantle exhumation and/or by initiation of oceanic spreading centers in the South Atlantic are welcome.
We expect regional basin analysis works involving geological and geophysical studies, plate reconstructions, seismic interpretation, and basin-wide structural geology, sedimentological and stratigraphic interpretations. We also expect more detailed studies involving structural analysis of inherited crustal weaknesses affecting the syn-rift depocenters, geological and geophysical interpretation of salt and shale tectonics, discussion of magmatic episodes in the pre-, syn- and post-rift stratigraphic successions, and descriptions of multiple overprinting extensional and compressional tectonic events leading to a variety of exploration plays in the southern South Atlantic continental margins.
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Webster Mohriak, Sylvia dos Anios and Monica Heilbron
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