The South Oman Salt Basin is a sedimentary basin in Oman, at the southeastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula. [1] [2] It is one of the oldest commercial deposits in the world. [2] Its oil is associated with source rocks of the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian-era Huqf Supergroup. [2]
In 1937, the first operating license in South Oman was awarded to Petroleum Development Oman and Dhofar. [3] In 1976, the discovery of moveable oil in Nasir-1 boosted the carbonate intrasalt stringer exploration. [3] As the difficulty in delivering expected reserves was greater than expected, operations went dormant in 1986. [3]
The Cambrian Period is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million years ago (mya) to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 485.4 mya. Its subdivisions, and its base, are somewhat in flux.
The Ediacaran period is a geological period of the Neoproterozoic era that spans 96 million years from the end of the Cryogenian period at 635 Mya, to the beginning of the Cambrian period at 538.8 Mya. It is the last period of the Proterozoic eon as well as the last of the so-called "Precambrian supereon", before the beginning of the subsequent Cambrian period marks the start of the Phanerozoic eon where recognizable fossil evidence of life becomes common.
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name petroleum covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that consist of refined crude oil.
The Snowball Earth is a geohistorical hypothesis that proposes during one or more of Earth's icehouse climates, the planet's surface became entirely or nearly entirely frozen with no liquid oceanic or surface water exposed to the atmosphere. The most academically referred period of such global glaciation is believed to have occurred sometime before 650 mya during the Cryogenian period.
The Permian Basin is a large sedimentary basin in the southwestern part of the United States. It is the highest producing oil field in the United States, producing an average of 4.2 million barrels of crude oil per day in 2019. This sedimentary basin is located in western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. It reaches from just south of Lubbock, past Midland and Odessa, south nearly to the Rio Grande River in southern West Central Texas, and extending westward into the southeastern part of New Mexico. It is so named because it has one of the world's thickest deposits of rocks from the Permian geologic period. The greater Permian Basin comprises several component basins; of these, the Midland Basin is the largest, Delaware Basin is the second largest, and Marfa Basin is the smallest. The Permian Basin covers more than 86,000 square miles (220,000 km2), and extends across an area approximately 250 miles (400 km) wide and 300 miles (480 km) long.
The Campos Basin is one of 12 coastal sedimentary basins of Brazil. It spans both onshore and offshore parts of the South Atlantic with the onshore part located near Rio de Janeiro. The basin originated in Neocomian stage of the Cretaceous period 145–130 million years ago during the breakup of Gondwana. It has a total area of about 115,000 square kilometres (44,000 sq mi), with the onshore portion small at only 500 square kilometres (190 sq mi).
The Mumbai High Field, formerly called the Bombay High Field, is an offshore oilfield 176 km (109 mi) off the west coast of Mumbai, in Gulf of Cambay region of India, in about 75 m (246 ft) of water. The oil operations are run by India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).
A salt dome is a type of structural dome formed when salt intrudes into overlying rocks in a process known as diapirism. Salt domes can have unique surface and subsurface structures, and they can be discovered using techniques such as seismic reflection. They are important in petroleum geology as they can function as petroleum traps.
The Sirte Basin is a late Mesozoic and Cenozoic triple junction continental rift along northern Africa that was initiated during the late Jurassic Period. It borders a relatively stable Paleozoic craton and cratonic sag basins along its southern margins. The province extends offshore into the Mediterranean Sea, with the northern boundary drawn at the 2,000 meter (m) bathymetric contour. It borders in the north on the Gulf of Sidra and extends south into northern Chad.
The Santos Basin is an approximately 352,000 square kilometres (136,000 sq mi) large mostly offshore sedimentary basin. It is located in the south Atlantic Ocean, some 300 kilometres (190 mi) southeast of Santos, Brazil. The basin is one of the Brazilian basins to have resulted from the break-up of Gondwana since the Early Cretaceous, where a sequence of rift basins formed on both sides of the South Atlantic; the Pelotas, Santos, Campos and Espírito Santo Basins in Brazil, and the Namibia, Kwanza and Congo Basins in southwestern Africa.
The Marinoan glaciation, sometimes also known as the Varanger glaciation, was a period of worldwide glaciation. Its beginning is poorly constrained, but occurred no earlier than 654.5 Ma. It ended approximately 632.3 ± 5.9 Ma during the Cryogenian period. This glaciation possibly covered the entire planet, in an event called the Snowball Earth. The end of the glaciation was caused by volcanic release of carbon dioxide and dissolution of gas hydrates and might have been hastened by the release of methane from equatorial permafrost.
The Hajar Mountains are one of the highest mountain ranges in the Arabian Peninsula, shared between northern Oman and eastern United Arab Emirates. Also known as "Oman Mountains", they separate the low coastal plain of Oman from the high desert plateau, and lie 50–100 km (31–62 mi) inland from the Gulf of Oman.
The Rajasthan Basin is a sedimentary basin located in the north west part of India. This sedimentary basin is one of India's major sources of petroleum and natural gas and has a geographical extent of about 126,000 square kilometres (49,000 sq mi). The Rajasthan Basin unconfirmably lies over Precambrian basement rocks.
The Zagros fold and thrust belt is an approximately 1,800-kilometre (1,100 mi) long zone of deformed crustal rocks, formed in the foreland of the collision between the Arabian Plate and the Eurasian Plate. It is host to one of the world's largest petroleum provinces, containing about 49% of the established hydrocarbon reserves in fold and thrust belts (FTBs) and about 7% of all reserves globally.
24-isopropyl cholestane is an organic molecule produced by specific sponges, protists and marine algae. The identification of this molecule at high abundances in Neoproterozoic rocks has been interpreted to reflect the presence of multicellular life prior to the rapid diversification and radiation of life during the Cambrian explosion. In this transitional period at the start of the Phanerozoic, single-celled organisms evolved to produce many of the evolutionary lineages present on Earth today. Interpreting 24-isopropyl cholestane in ancient rocks as indicating the presence of sponges before this rapid diversification event alters the traditional understanding of the evolution of multicellular life and the coupling of biology to changes in end-Neoproterozoic climate. However, there are several arguments against causally linking 24-isopropyl cholestane to sponges based on considerations of marine algae and the potential alteration of organic molecules over geologic time. In particular the discovery of 24-isopropyl cholestane in rhizarian protists implies that this biomarker cannot be used on its own to trace sponges. Interpreting the presence of 24-isopropyl cholestane in the context of changingglobal biogeochemical cycles at the Proterozoic-Phanerozoic transition remains an area of active research.
The Lusitanian Basin is a rift basin located on both the mainland and continental shelf off the west-central coast of Portugal. It covers an area measuring 20,000 square kilometres (7,700 sq mi) and extends north-south from Porto to Lisbon. The basin varies between approximately 130 kilometres (81 mi) and 340 kilometres (210 mi) in width and belongs to a family of periatlantic basins such as the Jeanne d'Arc Basin. To the east of the Lusitanian Basin lies the Central Plateau of the Iberian Peninsula. A marginal horst system lies to the west. The Alentejo and Algarve Basins connect to the southern end of the Lusitanian Basin. In the north, it connects to the Porto and Galicia Basins via an undersea ridge.
The Rub' al Khali Basin or ar-Rubʻ al-Khālī / ar-rubʿ al-ḵālī Basin, Arabic for "Empty Quarter Basin", is a major endorheic sedimentary basin of approximately 560,000 square kilometres (220,000 sq mi) in southern Saudi Arabia, northeastern Yemen, southeastern Oman and southeasternmost United Arab Emirates. The onshore foreland on Mesozoic rift basin is geographically defined by the eponymous Rub' al Khali and covers the regions of Najran and Riyadh and the Eastern Province. The basin is geologically bound by the Central Arabian Arch in the north, the Oman Thrust in the east, the Northern Hadramaut Arch in the south, and the Arabian Shield in the west. Politically, the southwestern boundary is formed by the border with Yemen and the border with Oman forms the southeastern boundary.
The Officer Basin is an intracratonic sedimentary basin that covers roughly 320,000 km2 along the border between southern and western Australia. Exploration for hydrocarbons in this basin has been sparse, but the geology has been examined for its potential as a hydrocarbon reservoir. This basin's extensive depositional history, with sedimentary thicknesses exceeding 6 km and spanning roughly 350 Ma during the Neoproterozoic, make it an ideal candidate for hydrocarbon production.
The Huqf Supergroup of the Sultanate of Oman is a lithostratigraphic unit located in Jabal Akhdar, Huqf area, and Mirbat area of Dhofar and is penetrated by boreholes in the salt basins of the Oman interior. The Supergroup is composed of the Abu Mahara Group, the Nafun Group, and the Ara Group .. Huqf stratigraphy is divided into four tectonically and temporally distinct units: the Cryogenian Abu Mahara Group, the Ediacaran Nafun Group, and the terminal Ediacaran to early Cambrian Ara Group. The supergroup contains a record of Neoproterozoic history, such as evidence of two glaciations, a massive reorganization of the global carbon cycle, and the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition.
G. M. Bhat is a geologist from Jammu and Kashmir, India. He was the head professor at Department of Geology of Jammu University.