Impact of Hinterland Evolution in Mineralogy of Clastics Sediments: Presentation of a New Project Focus on the Mozambique Margin During Meso-cenozoic Times
Abstract
The early stage of oil exploration in sedimentary basins is based both on large scale tectono-stratigraphic approach from previous works and conventional imaging data mostly well-logs and 2D seismic. In particular geologists face to the lack of model to be able to better predict the reservoir presence and quality of undrilled basins. The source-to-sink studies (“S2S”) on modern or recent systems are particular interest because they aim to understand and quantify the link from the source/hinterland area (drainage area, nature of the bedrock, climate and topography) to the sink/basin (slope gradient, shelf size, eustasy and sedimentary process). The application of this S2S approach on ancient sedimentary systems is challenging because of the lack of constraints of some controlling factors like the climate, the composition of the source material, the location and altitude of paleo-reliefs or the extent of the drainage area. Our aim is to explore if there is a way to anticipate the impact of the tectonic /geodynamic and climatic evolution of a hinterland on clastic accumulations in the basin and their related mineralogical composition in the basin using the same data-set that can be obtained during an early exploration phase.