GeoArctic Ltd. | Deformable Plate Reconstructions | Geoscience Consulting and Services | PlateDEF

Deformable Plate Reconstructions

Hyperextended margins

Magma-rich and magma-poor margins

Frontier and underexplored regions

Salt provinces

PlateDEF plate models quantify and accommodate the amount and direction of crustal stretching and shortening for key tectonic events at convergent, extensional and transform margins using a proprietary palinspastic deformable-margin plate reconstruction software and method. Palinspastic deformable-margin plate kinematic models are independent of any one model for rifted margin formation and quantitively restore the history of crustal deformation and multiple episodes of rifting or compression using geological and geophysical constraints. Unlike rigid plate models and deformable models that restore only the continent-ocean boundaries (COB), palinspastic deformable-margin models accommodate margin asymmetry, allow for heterogeneous plane strain and are used to produce palinspastically restored pre-rift or pre-collision geometry for continental boundaries, intra-plate basins and other tectonic features.

PlateDEF multi-client deformable plate reconstruction studies from GeoArctic provide New Ventures and Frontier explorationists with the regional structural and tectonic understanding to support prospect-specific exploration in the North and Central Atlantic, Circum-Arctic and Baffin-Labrador-West Greenland. GeoArctic has pioneered the use of deformable plate reconstructions combined with thermal subsidence and flexural upift modelling to help provide a clearer understanding of the relationship between hyperextension, sedimentary basin evolution, and basin margin uplift. These new methods of evaluating hyperextended margins provide input for environment of deposition interpretations and for basin modelling.

PlateDEF multi-client studies include a report and digital data and are available individually or as a fully integrated package .

North Atlantic

The PlateDEF study for the North Atlantic covers the conjugate margins of Newfoundland-Ireland and East Greenland-Europe. This study is of interest to anyone exploring the deep water hyperextended basins around the margins including those of the Norwegian shelf (Møre, Vøring basins), Newfoundland (East and West Orphan basins), offshore Ireland (Porcupine and Rockall basins), and western offshore UK (including the hyperextended basins of the West of Shetlands). The study also encompasses the Jan Mayen microcontinent and East Greenland. We use the PlateDEF palinspastic deformable-margin plate reconstruction model for the North Atlantic to re-evaluate these emerging deep-water provinces. These new methods provide input for environment of deposition interpretations and for basin modelling. The structural features that characterise hyperextended margins are not well documented and are often overlooked, but when the structural processes are fully understood they can provide us with potential new petroleum plays.

For more information on the North Atlantic PlateDEF study please contact GeoArctic.

Baffin-Labrador-West Greenland

The PlateDEF study provides new insights into the complex interaction between rifting, strike-slip fault zones, and Cenozoic compression in the Baffin Bay, West Greenland and Labrador Sea continental margins. The timing of breakup, and the extent of hyperextended crust and mantle exhumation in the ocean basins, have been re-defined as a result of the study. Modelling the northward propagation of the rift system shows a progressive development of structures which influence deposition and potential trap integrity. Mapping the geometry and connectivity of the rift basins helps to assess the critical marine connections to the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. The study summarises the main source rock and reservoir intervals that are anticipated in the Baffin Bay-Labrador Sea area. A series of palaeogeographic reconstructions provide a detailed analysis of the geometry of the basins at the time of deposition. The PlateDEF plate reconstruction results are used to model palaeogeography and the marine connection between the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay, and between Baffin Bay and the Arctic Ocean.

For more information on the Baffin-Labrador-West Greenland PlateDEF study please contact GeoArctic.

Circum-Arctic and Barents Sea

The PlateDEF plate study for the Circum-Arctic sheds light on the timing and direction of opening of the Arctic basins, the nature of the Alpha-Mendeleev ridge and the role of transform zones in the transfer of extension from the Atlantic and Baffin Bay rift systems. It also highlights the influence of distant Arctic tectonics on the Barents shelf. Palinspastic deformable-margin plate kinematic models quantify the timing, amount and direction of extension, compression and deformation related to strike-slip motion across a margin and are particularly important for hyperextended margins such as the Laptev Shelf, SW Barents Shelf, and NE Greenland margins. The new plate model sheds light on some of the more enigmatic features of the circum-Arctic such as the pre-rift configuration of Ellesmerian and Caledonian structural lineaments and the Northwind Ridge and Chukchi Plateau. It provides the timing and amount of extension transferred along transform zones into the Arctic from the North Atlantic along the De Geer Megashear in the Early Cretaceous and from Baffin Bay-Labrador Sea in the Late Cretaceous along the Wegener Fault Zone, charting a propagating system of seafloor spreading, hyperextension, rifting, transform and extension from the North Atlantic and Labrador Sea to the Arctic.

For more information on the Circum-Arctic and Barents Sea PlateDEF study please contact GeoArctic.

Central Atlantic

The PlateDEF plate study for the Central Atlantic is the most recent deformable plate multi-client study. GeoArctic brings its experience from previous studies to the conjugate margins of Newfoundland-Iberia, Nova Scotia-Morocco, and the US Eastern Seaboard-Northwest and West Africa. This includes potential new deep-water provinces such as the Baltimore Canyon, and exciting new areas such as Guyana/Suriname-Mauritania/Senegal conjugate margins. This study covers the salt provinces of Nova Scotia and the Eastern Seaboard, Morocco and West Africa. Many of these areas share characteristic structural features associated with hyperextension such as high rates of subsidence, uplift of the basin margins, the development of submarine escarpments, perched basins, highly rotated fault blocks and localised shear zones.

For more information on the Central Atlantic PlateDEF study please contact GeoArctic.