GEL 16 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Brine Pool, Salt Tectonics, Cold Seep
Document Summary
Form as salt apporaches seabed and swawater percolates through sediment, salt dissolves and produces brine which remains on seafloor. Salt tectonics - large scale movement of evaporite deposits. Cold seep - area where hydrocarbon rich fluids seep out of seafloor. Hydrocarbon - compound rich in hydrogen in carbon, major components of petroleum and natural gas deposits. Marine algae oil and natural gas. Mostly from mesozoic because of climate at the time and abundance of plankton. Water at the time was more stagnant and warm. Burial of source materials to cook it. Reservoir rock: porous sandstone or limestone (reefs) Trapped in a structural trap or a facies trap. Large fossil fuel reserves in persian gulf. Seismic lines show traps for oil and gas deposits. Oil demand grows by 2% per year, 30 billion barrels of oil consumed annually with only 8 billion new barrels discovered. Us is responsible for 25% of oil consumption.
