Fracture Reservoirs and Intraplate Stresses

Plate Tectonics has been almost completely developed by academic and government geoscientists. However, the largest proportion of geologists and geophysicists is employed in the oil and gas industry. Has Plate Tectonics played a significant role in hydrocarbon exploration over the past 30 years or so? For the most part the answer has to be negative. The origin of continental margins and interior basins in the context of rift tectonics has certainly been informed by plate tectonic modeling, including thermal evolution which probably controls hydrocarbon maturation. The geologic time scale has been refined with incorporation of magnetic reversals from oceanic plates. Perhaps most importantly, sequence stratigraphy has had thermal evolution of sedimentary basin as an implicit or even explicit component, as it has been applied to sedimentary sequence and facies characterization as part of the potential reservoir evaluation process. Nevertheless, it is apparent that Plate Tectonics has, at best, only played a peripheral role in advancing the exploration process.