seismic and well data resulting in a coherent geological model correlating the
Western Black Sea margins crossing the deep water part of the basin.
6.1 Introduction
Regional basin scale interpretation aiming at the understanding of geological
evolution is an important step in petroleum exploration and in the construction of
a regional geological model. The prolongation of the geological model from areas
where it is relatively well constrained to those where it is less constrained can be
problematic. This is the case of the Western Black Sea Basin where the correlation
from the shelf to deep water is not straightforward.
The backbone of any regional basin scale interpretation of the Black Sea Basin
have been for a long period of time the OGS and DSS lines acquired in the late 70s
and published during the 80s in the two monographies of the Black Sea (Fig. 6.1,
Finetti et al. 1988; Tugolesov et al. 1985). Since that moment, important steps have
been made in the research and understanding of the Black Sea Basin architecture
and evolution, from both the academic and industry side. The industry, to unlock
the hydrocarbon potentials, have been mainly concentrated on the shallow water
shelf areas where a large amount of seismic data has been acquired and where a
significant number of wells have been drilled.
On the academic side the efforts have been focused on two main issues, and
namely:
1. The architecture and evolution of the Mio-Quaternary sequence. This had an
important moment in the drilling of DSDP 380 and 381 (Hsü and Giovanoli
1979) which launched the controversy over the existence of Messinian Salinity
Crisis in the Black Sea. And another important moment in the multinational
academic collaboration resulted in the acquisition of high resolution seismic
lines and gravity cores, like the ASSAMBLAGE, BLASSON, and other national
campaigns (Dondurur et al. 2013; Gillet et al. 2007; Konerding 2008; Lericolais
et al. 2013).
2. The join collaborative work between the Academia and the Industry, resulting in
publication of numerous data and most important the well results from the shelf
area, such as in the popular AAPG Memoire 68 (Robinson 1997, Ed.). The
academic-industry collaboration continued during the past decade bringing
significant contributions in the understanding of the Black Sea tectonic evolution
with significant amount of new publications.
A new impulse in the research of the Black Sea Basin have been given by the
deep water hydrocarbon exploration with the discovery of Domino gas field in 2012
Offshore Romania (S ¸en 2013; Tari et al. 2009). The most noticeable outcome of the
ongoing industry academic collaboration is without doubts the publication of the
new regional data set acquired in 2011 by ION conducted in affiliation with
92
I. Munteanu et al.
Western Black Sea margins crossing the deep water part of the basin.
6.1 Introduction
Regional basin scale interpretation aiming at the understanding of geological
evolution is an important step in petroleum exploration and in the construction of
a regional geological model. The prolongation of the geological model from areas
where it is relatively well constrained to those where it is less constrained can be
problematic. This is the case of the Western Black Sea Basin where the correlation
from the shelf to deep water is not straightforward.
The backbone of any regional basin scale interpretation of the Black Sea Basin
have been for a long period of time the OGS and DSS lines acquired in the late 70s
and published during the 80s in the two monographies of the Black Sea (Fig. 6.1,
Finetti et al. 1988; Tugolesov et al. 1985). Since that moment, important steps have
been made in the research and understanding of the Black Sea Basin architecture
and evolution, from both the academic and industry side. The industry, to unlock
the hydrocarbon potentials, have been mainly concentrated on the shallow water
shelf areas where a large amount of seismic data has been acquired and where a
significant number of wells have been drilled.
On the academic side the efforts have been focused on two main issues, and
namely:
1. The architecture and evolution of the Mio-Quaternary sequence. This had an
important moment in the drilling of DSDP 380 and 381 (Hsü and Giovanoli
1979) which launched the controversy over the existence of Messinian Salinity
Crisis in the Black Sea. And another important moment in the multinational
academic collaboration resulted in the acquisition of high resolution seismic
lines and gravity cores, like the ASSAMBLAGE, BLASSON, and other national
campaigns (Dondurur et al. 2013; Gillet et al. 2007; Konerding 2008; Lericolais
et al. 2013).
2. The join collaborative work between the Academia and the Industry, resulting in
publication of numerous data and most important the well results from the shelf
area, such as in the popular AAPG Memoire 68 (Robinson 1997, Ed.). The
academic-industry collaboration continued during the past decade bringing
significant contributions in the understanding of the Black Sea tectonic evolution
with significant amount of new publications.
A new impulse in the research of the Black Sea Basin have been given by the
deep water hydrocarbon exploration with the discovery of Domino gas field in 2012
Offshore Romania (S ¸en 2013; Tari et al. 2009). The most noticeable outcome of the
ongoing industry academic collaboration is without doubts the publication of the
new regional data set acquired in 2011 by ION conducted in affiliation with
92
I. Munteanu et al.