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Table of Contents
Thermal Maturity Studies and Microfossils
Source Rocks and Organic Maturity
Petroleum Systems Analysis is the phase in basin screening and exploration where it is determined if all the necessary elements are in place to generate and trap hydrocarbons. These include elements such as the presence of a source-rock, a trap and a seal but also include quantitative assessments including how much hydrocarbons could be generated from the source rock under different degrees of maturity and whether there are suitable migration routes to allow the hydrocarbons to get from the source rocks and into the trap. Does the trap contain rock units that are of suitable porosity and permeability to store (and allow to be released) commercial quantities of hydrocarbons and is there a coherent, non-porous and non-permeable seal which is intact (i.e. unfractured)?
Microfossils cannot directly inform us of the latter features of a Petroleum System but they can give us insights - some quantitative - into the source-rocks and hydrocarbon-generative aspects of a Petroleum System.