Tectono-stratigraphic development and hydrocarbon habitat of the Carboniferous in northern England

Abstract Over 70 years of exploration in the Carboniferous of northern England has resulted in the discovery of rather modest recoverable reserves totalling 75 million barrels of oil and 27 billion cubic feet of gas. Nevertheless during this time the petroleum industry has amassed a substantial quantity of borehole and seismic information. Integrating this essentially subsurface database with information derived from outcrop studies has permitted a hitherto unachievable understanding of the Carboniferous in terms of its tectonostratigraphic development and hydrocarbon habitat. The strong NW-SE and NE-SE structural trends developed in the northern England Carboniferous were inherited from the late Palaeozoic Caledonian orogeny. These fault trends were consistently reactivated throughout the Carboniferous in both an extensional and compressional sense. The main influence on Carboniferous basin evolution in northern England was the Variscan collision-type orogeny. The Variscan plate cycle controlled the development of syn-rift, post-rift and inversion megasequences from late Devonian to early Permian times. Sequences developed within these Carboniferous megasequences are primarily controlled by episodic rifting and periodic fault reactivation with eustatic sea-level changes providing only minor control at the subsequence level. The late Carboniferous-early Permian culmination of the Variscan orogeny is seen to be the main trap forming event. All hydrocarbon discoveries to date display some element of Variscan inversion in their geometry. Variscan tectonics have also exerted a subtle but important control on play fairway evolution. The main source rocks (pro-delta shales) are confined to isolated, syn-rift depocentres. Syn-rift siliciclastic reservoirs are also restricted to the rifted half graben. Carbonate grainstone reservoirs rim the margins of the deeper half graben where terrigenous input has been limited. Delta top channel and mouth bar reservoirs are best developed where they axially infill remnant syn-rift bathymetry. Mesozoic burial, ensuring hydrocarbon generation post Variscan trap formation, is, however, the main control on the present day distribution of hydrocarbons in the Carboniferous of northern England. Several key areas where Carboniferous source rocks have generated significant hydrocarbons during the Mesozoic have been identified; the East Midlands being the most significant in terms of produced hydrocarbons and perceived future potential.