A petroleum system investigation starts with a working hypothesis for generation, migration, and entrapment of petroleum in a province, based onavailable geological and geochemical data, which evolves as more data becomes available (Fig. 2A, B). The investigator starts with an oil and gas field map and related field data for the petroleum province of interest. […]

The petroleum-system events chart shows the tem­poral relationship of the rock units, essentialelements, processes, preservation, and critical mo­ment for each petroleum system in bar graph form (Fig. 2F; Table I). The events chart concept is flexible and is used as a risk chart to evaluate plays and prospects The events chart shows the following items […]

The generation, migration, and accumulation of oil and gas in a petroleum system never starts when the source rock is being deposited and seldom extends into the present day. If a source rock is deposited in the Paleozoic, it may be the Mesozoic before it becomes thermally mature and charges adjacent traps, and by the […]

The burial history chart chosen to show the three hydrocarbon events for a petroleum system should be located in the pod of active source rock where, in the judgment of the investigator, much of the oil and gas originated. Usually this location is down-dip from a major migration path to the largest fields. Petroleum systems […]

The purpose of the burial history chart is to show the essential elements, and three important hydrocarbon events, which are (1) the onset (O) of generation – migration-accumulation, (2) the partially spent or depleted (D) active source rock, and (3) the critical moment (CM) of the petroleum system (Fig. 2E; Table I). The top of […]

The name of a petroleum system labels the hydro­carbon-fluid system or distribution network (Fig. 2D) in the same way the name Colorado River designates an aqueous distribution system, the river and its tributaries. The name of the petroleum system includes the geological formation names of the source rock followed by the major reservoir rock (Fig. […]

The petroleum system cross section (Fig. 2B; Table I), drawn at the critical moment, or time when most of the hydrocarbons were generated, shows the geo­graphic and stratigraphic extent of the petroleum system and how each rock unit functions within the system to distribute the oil and gas. Stratigraphically, the petroleum system includes a petroleum […]

The location of the burial history chart is along the cross section line within the pod of active source rock (Fig. 2B, E). At this location, the source rock must be thermally mature (active or spent) otherwise petro­leum would be absent in the conduits or migration paths. The reconstruction of the burial history provides the […]