Paleogeography, Paleoclimate, and Source Rocks Edited by A.-Y Huc AAPG Studies in Geology, No 40 Published by The American Association of Petroleum Geologists Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.A Printed in the U.S.A Copyright © 1995 By the American Association of Petroleum Geologists All Rights Reserved Published July 1995 ISBN: 0-89181-048-X AAPG grants permission for a single photocopy of an item from this publication for personal use Authorization for additional copies of items from this publication for personal or internal use is granted by AAPG provided that the base fee of $3.00 per copy is paid directly to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, Massachusetts 01923 Fees are subject to change Any form of electronic or digital scanning or other digital transformation of portions of this publication into computer-readable and/or transmittable form for personal or corporate use requires special permission from, and is subject to fee charges by, the AAPG Association Editor: Kevin T Biddle Science Director: Richard Steinmetz Publications Manager: Kenneth M Wolgemuth Special Projects Editor: Anne H Thomas Production: Custom Editorial Productions, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio Cover illustration adapted from a design by M Maguet Adaptation by Rusty Johnson, AAPG Graphics Designer THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PETROLEUM GEOLOGISTS (AAPG) DOES NOT ENDORSE OR RECOMMEND ANY PRODUCTS AND SERVICES THAT MAY BE CITED, USED OR DISCUSSED IN AAPG PUBLICATIONS OR IN PRESENTATIONS AT EVENTS ASSOCIATED WITH AAPG This and other AAPG publications are available from: The AAPG Bookstore P.O Box 979 Tulsa, OK 74101- 0979 Telephone (918) 584-2555; (800) 364-AAPG (USA—book orders only) FAX: (918) 584-0469; (800) 898-2274 (USA—book orders only) AAPG Wishes to thank the following for their generous contributions to Paleogeography, Paleoclimate, and Source Rocks ❖ Mobil Exploration & Producing Technical Center ❖ Contributions are applied against the production costs of the publication, thus directly reducing the book’s purchase price and making the volume available to a greater audience ◆ About the Editor ◆ Alain-Yves Huc is currently Head of the Organic Geochemistry group at the Institut Franỗais du Pộtrole (also known as IFP, or French Petroleum Institute) Dr Huc was educated at the University of Nancy (France) and received his Ph.D in Organic Geochemistry from the University of Strasbourg (France) in 1978 He spent a year and a half as a postdoctoral fellow at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (Woods Hole, Massachusetts) and two years as a CNRS researcher at the Applied Geology Department of the University of Orléans (France) Following that, he joined IFP Dr Huc spent three years on research devoted to the chemical structure of asphaltenes in crude oils For the next six years, his research interest focused on the study of the sedimentology of organic matter and its application to oil exploration During the past three years, his main scientific concern has been reservoir geochemistry ◆ Acknowledgments ◆ I am most grateful to the many individuals who have helped to make this volume possible In particular, I thank the contributing authors; the reviewers (E Barron, M M Blanc-Valleron, J Calvert, J Connan, J Curiale, H Cook, T Cross, W Dean, J Dercourt, K Emeis, A Fleet, H Ganz, D Hollander, J Golonka, J.-P Herbin, G Isaksen, B Katz, K Kelts, J Kriest, M Mello, P A Meyers, M Moldowan, G Moore, M Pasley, J Rullkotter, M Stefani, N Telnaes, F van Buchem, W Visser); C Williams, former AAPG Publications Manager, for guiding us in the volume elaboration; M F Bellenoux for secretarial assistance; and M Maguet for designing the pictorial project on the cover Alain-Yves Huc iv ◆ Table of Contents ◆ Preface vii Chapter Paleogeography of Corg-Rich Rocks and the Preservation Versus Production Controversy .1 Judith Totman Parrish Chapter Paleoceanography of Marine Organic-Carbon–Rich Sediments 21 William W Hay Chapter Factors Controlling the Development of Lacustrine Petroleum Source Rocks—An Update 61 Barry Jay Katz Chapter Organic Geochemistry of Paleodepositional Environments with a Predominance of Terrigenous Higher-Plant Organic Matter 81 Gary H Isaksen Chapter Effect of Late Devonian Paleoclimate on Source Rock Quality and Location 105 Allen R Ormiston and Robert J Oglesby Chapter The Effects of Paleolatitude and Paleogeography on Carbonate Sedimentation in the Late Paleozoic 133 D A Walker, J Golonka, A Reid, and S Reid Chapter Kimmeridgian (Late Jurassic) General Lithostratigraphy and Source Rock Quality for the Western Tethys Sea Inferred from Paleoclimate Results Using a General Circulation Model 157 George T Moore, Eric J Barron, and Darryl N Hayashida Chapter Paleoclimatic Controls on Neocomian–Barremian (Early Cretaceous) Lithostratigraphy in Northern Gondwana’s Rift Lakes Interpreted from a General Circulation Model Simulation 173 George T Moore, Eric J Barron, Karen L Bice, and Darryl N Hayashida Chapter Depositional Controls on Mesozoic Source Rocks in the Tethys 191 Franỗois Baudin Chapter 10 CenomanianTuronian Source Rocks: Paleobiogeographic and Paleoenvironmental Aspects .213 Wolfgang Kuhnt and Jost Wiedmann Chapter 11 The Hydrocarbon Source Potential in the Brazilian Marginal Basins: A Geochemical and Paleoenvironmental Assessment 233 M R Mello, N Telnaes, and J R Maxwell v Chapter 12 Source Rock Occurrence in a Sequence Stratigraphic Framework: The Example of the Lias of the Paris Basin 273 G Bessereau, F Guillocheau, and A.-Y Huc Chapter 13 The Organic Carbon Distribution in Mesozoic Marine Sediments and the Influence of Orbital Climatic Cycles (England and the Western North Atlantic) 303 F S P van Buchem, P L de Boer, I N McCave, and J.-P Herbin Index .337 vi ◆ Preface ◆ A research conference on paleogeography, paleoclimate, and source rocks was held in Paris in July 1992 as a special meeting co-sponsored by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) and the Institute Franỗais du Pộtrole (IFP) It was co-convened by Alain-Yves Huc of IFP and Nahum Schneidermann of Chevron Overseas Pe-troleum Following the conference, the convenors were asked to make the proceedings available to the public The convenors duly organized an AAPG Research Symposium on the topic at the 1993 AAPG Annual Meeting and began preparing this volume for publication The goal of the research conference was to evaluate current understanding of source rocks as a guide for petroleum exploration One of the purposes of the conference was to bring together researchers working separately in the fields of climate modeling, paleogeographic reconstruction, and source rock sedimentology The intent was to ensure crossdisciplinary discussions and to encourage contributions reflecting the various approaches of scientific endeavor involved in the exciting task of studying the occurrence and formation of organic-rich strata This conference also proposed to create an opportunity for a privileged exchange of ideas among scientists, from both academia and industry, concerning how accumulated experience and existing technology related to source-rock assessment could be transferred to the new needs of the oil industry During the course of the conference, special emphasis was placed on paleoplates and paleogeographic reconstructions, paleoclimate recreation and modeling, global source rock distribution, depositional setting of organic-rich sediments, sequence stratigraphy, cyclostratigraphy, and molecular fossils The discussions that were led by senior oil industry representatives G Demaison (consultant), D Irwin (Texaco), N Schneidermann (Chevron), B Tissot (IFP), and C Tranter (Mobil) identified three main points to be carefully considered for future collaboration with the oil industry additions in mature basins have become increasingly important This situation limits the need for deeper knowledge of source rocks and suggests that we transfer and adapt our technology to finer-scale problems In spite of these developments, however, oil companies continue to explore for additional value in a variety of basin types This activity is necessary in order to maintain stable and trained teams of exploration geologists and geophysicists in spite of the current adverse economic situation Accompanying research is consequently still required Reduction of risk in exploration: With respect to the last statement, petroleum explorers need to improve understanding of several points: the scale of investigation (basin scale, field scale, play scale), and the maturity of the considered province In very mature basins, the distribution of the source rock, its quality, and its characteristics are usually known However, in addition, it is important to quantify the generated oil and the trapped oil, and to compare these quantities to the amount of oil that has been discovered More research effort must be devoted to the development of oil-generation modeling and transfer from source rock to traps, and to quantification of loss during secondary migration In less mature basins, the stratigraphic location of the source rock is usually known, but research is required to determine its vertical/lateral extension and quality change Sequence stratigraphy and cyclicity are promising areas of research Moreover, this approach is likely to decipher the geometrical and regional relationship between source rocks and reservoir strata and to provide guides for understanding hydrocarbon migration behavior In frontier basins, presence or absence of source rocks and a working petroleum system are often unknown In such instances, the only available guides for predicting the regional presence of organic-rich strata in the sedimentary column are based on paleogeography and paleoclimatic considerations and on geologic analogs Improvement in paleoclimatology and climate and oceanic circulation modeling is needed, and related research should be supported Data and information transfers from oil companies to academia: In order to efficiently address the research areas identified above, academia needs access to hard data to constrain their results and their models Unfortunately, academic researchers usually lack money to obtain such data directly Oil companies currently have a considerable amount of invaluable information, but the data are not easy to collect and sort because they are often not well organized Interest trends in oil companies: Because of past intensive worldwide exploration, proved reserves have substantially increased in the last several decades and new discoveries of economically attractive giant fields will become more and more problematic In view of new producing opportunities worldwide, as well as emphasis on creation of value rather than on finding reserves, reservoir management and reserve vii Researchers working in climate modeling face specific problems in obtaining global information The oil companies that may have such data are increasingly organized according to geographical zones, must meet the stringent requirements of their own budgets, and may have little interest in global scale studies A great effort should be made to ensure that industry data are available in a usable format for academic researchers Isaksen) Chapters through 11 attempt to integrate the occurrence of source rocks and their geochemical characteristics within a paleogeographic, paleoclimatic (eventually using global climate models), and paleoenvironmental framework They cover the Late Devonian (A R Ormiston and R J Oglesby), the late Paleozoic (Walker et al.), the Kimmeridgian in the Western Tethys Sea (Moore et al.), the Neocomian–Barremian in the Northern Gondwana rift (Moore et al.), the Mesozoic of the Tethys realm (F Baudin), the Cenomanian–Turonian (W Kuhnt and J Wiedmann), and on a more regional petroleum theme, the Brazilian margin (M R Mello et al.) The final two chapters consider the source rocks in the sedimentary column according to sequential stratigraphy perspective (G Bessereau et al., F van Buchem et al.) Most of the papers in this volume were presented at the conference However, a few were solicited later in order to fill in what were believed to be critical gaps in the original list of contributions The first three chapters address the factors controlling the deposition of organic-rich sediments in marine environments (J T Parrish, W W Hay) and in lacustrine settings (B J Katz) Chapter reviews the specificity of biomarkers related to paleodepositional environments with a predominance of terrigenous higher-plant input (G H Alain-Yves Huc Nahum Schneidermann viii Chapter ◆ Paleogeography of Corg-Rich Rocks and the Preservation Versus Production Controversy Judith Totman Parrish University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A ◆ ABSTRACT New analyses of previously examined data sets had the following results: (1) Nearly half of organic-carbon- (Corg-) rich units were deposited in geographic settings that not have modern analogs (2) If upwelling associated with western boundary currents is included, predicted upwelling zones can explain up to 93% of oil-prone, C org -rich deposits through the Phanerozoic The remaining deposits occur in only three settings—rift basins; low-latitude, enclosed, epicontinental seaways; and mid-latitude shelves (3) Thirty-four phosphate deposits can be identified in the literature that are part of the Si-P-C association, which is widely regarded to be indicative of high productivity Another 100 deposits had one of the pairs of adjacent facies, phosphate-glauconite or phosphate–Corg-rich rock, which occur together in upwelling zones Together, these account for 82% of the 164 phosphate deposits identified in the literature These results support conclusions that high biologic productivity has strongly influenced sedimentation of organic carbon Although mechanisms for the genesis of anoxia have been widely discussed, mechanisms for the genesis of high biologic productivity have not; it is suggested that consideration be given to mechanisms, in addition to localized upwelling, that might promote high productivity in the oceans and the resulting high organic accumulation in sediments ment and/or bottom-water conditions are anoxic, and that biologic productivity, that is, the rate of production of organic matter, is irrelevant, except perhaps in determining the overall organic-carbon (Corg) richness The other school of thought, represented by Calvert, Pedersen, and their colleagues (e.g., Calvert et al., 1992a), holds that organic matter will accumulate wherever biologic productivity in the water column is high—subject to the constraints of water depth—and, further, that the oxygen content of the water above the sediments is irrelevant The problem INTRODUCTION One of the most intractable problems in sedimentology concerns the mechanisms by which organic matter accumulates in the geologic record Numerous papers have been written on the subject, and the discussion has become known informally as the “preservation versus production controversy.” One school of thought, represented by Tyson (Tyson, 1987) and Tyson and Pearson (Tyson and Pearson, 1991), holds that organic matter will accumulate wherever sedi1 ... large, semi-enclosed basin (the Gulf of Mexico) Paleogeography of Corg-Rich Rocks and the Preservation Versus Production Controversy Methods and Results Paleogeography of Corg-Rich Rocks A global... and Wyoming, in T.D Fouch and E.R Magathan, eds., Paleozoic Paleogeography of West-Central United States, West-Central United States Paleogeography Symposium 1: Rocky Mountain Section Society... project on the cover Alain-Yves Huc iv ◆ Table of Contents ◆ Preface vii Chapter Paleogeography of Corg-Rich Rocks and the Preservation Versus Production Controversy .1 Judith