Magnhild Sydnes

Magmatic intrusions and structural developments effect on temperature and maturation in sedimentary basins

Magmatic intrusions are emplaced in many sedimentary basins throughout the world. From the Norwegian continental shelf they are known to be present in the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea. The Vøring Basin in the Norwegian Sea, is known for its numerous intruded sills. Magmatic sills can be relatively easy to spot on seismic as they stand out due to their high acoustic impedance. However, determining their thickness, their upper and lower boundaries, can be challenging due to seismic resolution. This has consequences for thermal and maturation modeling in areas with magmatic intrusions.

Generally sills are emplaced in structurally complex areas. When sills intrude, the magma may be ~1000°C intruding into a system which is under development. The basin has already been through stages of structural changes, and more changes will occur after the emplacement of sills. To understand sills effect on temperature and maturation in basins, it is necessary to have a good knowledge of the structural development and its affect on the temperature evolution, also before the sills intruded. Standard basin modeling does not have the ability to reconstruct the structural evolution of basins, nor (to my knowledge) the ability to implement sills into the modeling. I will present results performed by a high resolution 2D basin modeling software able to conduct both structural reconstruction of basins and study the effect of emplaced sills.