South and North Barents Triassic-Jurassic total petroleum system of the Russian offshore Arctic

One major gas-prone petroleum system characterizes the sparsely explored South and North Barents Basin Provinces of the Russian Arctic in the eastern Barents Sea. More than 13 billion barrels of oil equivalent (79 trillion cubic feet of gas) known ultimately recoverable gas reserves in seven fields were sourced from Triassic marine and continental shales and stored in Jurassic (97%) and Triassic (3%) marine and continental sandstone reservoir rocks. The basins contain 18-20 kilometers of pre-Upper Permian carbonate and post-Upper Permian siliciclastic sedimentary fill. Late Permian-Triassic(?) rifting and subsidence resulted in the deposition of as much as 9 kilometers of Triassic strata, locally injected with sills. Rapidly buried Lower Triassic source rocks generated hydrocarbons as early as Late Triassic into stratigraphic traps and structural closures that were modified periodically. Thermal cooling and deformation associated with Cenozoic uplift impacted seal integrity and generation processes, modified traps, and caused gas expansion and remigration.