Possible analogues of the Eastern Mediterranean Cretaceous Isolated Carbonate Platforms

Cretaceous shallow water carbonates are widespread in the Mediterranean area. These units deposited in the Mesozoic Tethys before or just at the beginning of the Alpine deformation phase that involved these sequences and gave the present-day shape of the region. The characteristics of the Cretaceous carbonates are extremely variable and strongly controlled by the depositional environments and paleoclimatic conditions at the time of deposition.

Cretaceous shallow water carbonates have also been one of the main targets for oil and gas exploration in the Mediterranean area and surrounding regions. The majority of these discoveries are located in the central and western Mediterranean where most of the exploration activity focused, in particular onshore and offshore Italy, but some other discoveries can be found offshore Spain, offshore Tunisia, onshore Libya and offshore Albania. On the contrary, very limited number of HC discoveries have been made in shallow water carbonate reservoirs in the eastern region.

The recent discovery of Zohr field in the Levantine Sea has renewed interest in the Cretaceous shallow water carbonates of the entire Mediterranean Region.

The main objective of this report is to summarise some of the key information regarding the main shallow water carbonates deposited during Cretaceous in the Mediterranean region, in order to better understand if Zohr is unique or, by studying what we know and what has already been discovered, it can open a new play not just in the Levantine Sea but over the entire Mediterranean region.

The study selects and compares the characteristics of 9 possible outcrops and subsurface analogues of the Zohr discovery by using five criteria of similarity.

Included in the cost of the study there is also a 3 days field trip for up to 5 participants in central and southern Italy. The objective of the field trip is to observe at reservoir and seismic scale the main characteristics of Cretaceous Carbonates facies and geometries along and across the margin of one of the largest and long-lived carbonate platforms of the Tethys and Mediterranean Region.