Basin richness and source rock disruption - a fundamental relationship

Primary petroleum migration (expulsion from source rocks) remains the least understood parameter controlling the genesis of oil deposits. It is hypothesised that source rocks must be physically disrupted before meaningful expulsion can occur. Faulting, with accompanying significant fracturing, would appear to be the optimum naturally-occurring process for physical disruption of source rocks. If these hypotheses are valid, intensity of faulting in deeply-buried HC "kitchens' containing mature source rocks should strongly correlate with increasing basin richness. This possible relationship is examined in this paper; it is found that there is a strong correlation of increasing basin richness with increasing structural intensity over and adjacent to basin depocentres. This correlation thus supports the hypothesis that physical disruption of mature source rocks is a necessary, and previously unappreciated, controlling parameter for oil expulsion. -from Author