A review of techniques for the estimation of magnitude and timing of exhumation in offshore basins

Exhumation, the removal of overburden resulting from the vertical displacement of rocks from maximum burial depth, occurs at both regional and local scales in offshore sedimentary basins and has important implications for the prospectivity of petroliferous basins. In these basins, issues to be addressed by the petroleum geologist include, the timing of thermal 'switch-off' of source rock units, the compactional and diagenetic constraints imposed by the maximum burial depth of reservoirs (prior to uplift), the physical and mechanical characteristics of cap-rocks during and post-exhumation, the structural evolution of traps and the hydrocarbon emplacement history. Central to addressing these issues is the geoscientist's ability to identify exhumation events, estimate their magnitude and deduce their timing. A variety of individual techniques is available to assess the exhumation of sedimentary successions, but generic categorisation indicates that 'point' measurements of rock displacement, in the offshore arena, are made with respect to four frames of reference - tectonic, thermal, compactional or stratigraphic. These techniques are critically reviewed in the context of some of the exhumed offshore sedimentary basins peripheral to the Irish landmass. This review confirms that large uncertainty is associated with estimates from individual techniques but that the integration of seismic interpretation and regional stratigraphic data provides valuable constraints on estimates from the more indirect tectonic, thermal and compactional methods.