New Mexico Geological Society Annual Spring Meeting — Abstracts

Petroleum Exploration has moved from historical “Classic Hydrocarbon Traps” to “ Shale Plays”. In classic hydrocarbon traps, the petroleum has migrated out from the source rocks over a geologic time period and accumulated into traps that humans produce and use in human time scale. Shale plays go directly to the source rocks and extract the petroleum in a human time scale period by passing the geologic time scale accumulation step. This involves in essences mining the source rock shale's and producing with them with horizontal drilling and fracking to stimulate permeability.

To explore for source rock shale's, one can start with understanding the tectonic history and distribution of Oceanic Anoxic Events. Oceanic Anoxic Events are periods when the polar ice caps have melted and the natural deep oxygenating oceanic currents break down and as a result the deep ocean goes through a period of anoxia and becomes a reducing environment that sequesters carbon into the shale. Oceanic anoxic events can produce hydrocarbon source rocks when buried and heated to mature the petroleum products. Most of the major hydrocarbon producing source rocks in the world are generated by this process.