Insights from petrography, mineralogy and U-Pb zircon geochronology into the provenance and reservoir potential of Cenozoic siliciclastic depositional systems supplying the northern margin of the Eastern Black Sea

•Reservoir quality prediction is a key risk factor in the underexplored Eastern Black Sea.•The composition and U-Pb zircon geochronology of 60 sandstones were analysed.•Two major sources of quartz-rich sandstones to the basin have been identified.•These are the Russian western Greater Caucasus and East European Craton-Scythian Platform.•Presented data provide a framework for reservoir quality prediction in the basin.

The Eastern Black Sea is one of the few remaining underexplored hydrocarbon basins in Europe. Reservoir quality is a key risk factor in the basin. The analysis of up-dip portions of Oligocene to Pliocene depositional systems exposed around its northern and eastern margins enable the composition and provenance of sandstones within the basin to be predicted. Two major sources of quartz-rich sandstone are present: the Russian western Greater Caucasus, which became a subaerial sediment source in the Oligocene, and the East European Craton-Scythian Platform. These are predicted to form better quality reservoirs at shallow and moderate burial depths than their rock fragment-rich counterparts, due to lesser amounts of compactional porosity loss. Oligo-Miocene sandstones from the Russian western Greater Caucasus were deposited as turbidites in the Tuapse Trough. Sandstones from the East European Craton-Scythian Platform were largely trapped within the Indolo-Kuban Basin north of the Greater Caucasus. They only entered the Eastern Black Sea in large volumes from latest Miocene or Pliocene time in the region of the Kerch-Taman shelf at the western tip of the Greater Caucasus. However, it is possible that a precursor to this system supplied the Oligocene to Early Miocene reservoir sandstones within the Subbotina field. The Dziruli Massif, in western Georgia, also generated quartz-rich sandstones, but these are not thought to have entered the Black Sea.