The overall objective of this research project is to undertake a detailed study of the tectonomagmatic
development of the southern Møre Basin and to assess the implications on sand provenance and deposition.
The project will build on results from the OMNIS (Offshore Mid-Norway: Integrated Margin and Basin
Studies) project completed at the University of Oslo. A key deliverable will be a series of paleoenviromental
maps from 80 to 40 Ma (Late Cretaceous to earliest Eocene) with provenance areas and sediment runout
distances included.
Upper Cretaceous and Paleocene sandstone successions represent promising petroleum reservoirs along the
NE Atlantic margins (Figure 1). Hydrocarbons are present in the Ormen Lange field and e.g. the Tulipan,
Gro, and Balderbrå discoveries on the mid-Norwegian continental margin, and in a number of Paleogene
discoveries in the West of Shetland region (e.g. Tobermory, Rosebank, Shielhallion, Marjun). However,
exploration is complicated by massive Paleocene magmatism, forming voluminous intrusive and extrusive
complexes along the margin, masking and distorting seismic signals. Furthermore, good quality sandstone
reservoirs have been difficult to find in the Møre and southern Vøring basins.
A new understanding of the nature and implication of igneous processes and deposits, combined with new
understanding of sand source-to-sink systems in the region, will improve constraints on prospectivity of the
southern Møre Basin (Figures 2 and 3). The project focus is on sand provenance and depositional systems
in the southern Møre Basin (Figure 3) and will be headed by Associate Professor Ivar Midtkandal at the
University of Oslo. It includes work packages that will integrate borehole and seismic studies, to determine
sand fairways and deposition. Fieldwork on analogue strata is planned in order to ground-truth and calibrate
subsurface information with sub-seismic data from outcrops. A three-year Post. Doc. at the University of
Oslo will be financed by the project. The research will conducted be in collaboration with the Volcanic
Margin Petroleum Prospectivity (VMAPP2) project group, a multi-client project sponsored by Aker BP.
