Global neoproterozoic petroleum systems: The emerging potential in North Africa, by Jonathan Craig, J. Thurow, B. Thusu, A. Whitham, and Y. Abutarruma. Geological society special publication, 326, 2009. No. of pages: 309. ISBN 978-1-86239-287-8 (hardback).

✍ Scribed by Alan P. Heward

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 40 KB
• Volume: 46
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0072-1050
• DOI: 10.1002/gj.1279

✦ Synopsis

This Special Publication stems from a conference held at the Geological Society in November 2006 entitled 'Global Infracambrian Petroleum Systems and the Emerging Potential in North Africa'. Also included is a paper from a conference on a similar theme, for a different region, held at Jammu, India, in February 2008. The book comprises a well-illustrated introduction by the editors; five papers which review Neoproterozoic timescales and stratigraphy, biological evolution, plate reconstructions, Re-Os geochronology and global Infracambrian petroleum systems; six papers on North African Neoproterozoic geology and hydrocarbon prospectivity and four papers describing Neoproterozoic geology from elsewhere (northeastern Spain, northern India, Namibia and southern South America). The papers I found most interesting were Alan Smith's lucid portrayal of Neoproterozoic timescales and stratigraphy, Nick Butterfield's slow 'synthesis' of life during this 458 million years of earth's history, and the summary by Sebastion Lu ¨ning and co-worker's of the occurrence of organic-rich strata in the Neoproterozoic of northwest Africa. I struggled with size and clarity of Chris Scotese's interesting palaeomaps, could barely spot 'the Nepa of Siberia and Huqf of Oman' and wanted to rotate the globe, zoom-in and interrogate.

The book aims to encourage the search for Neoproterozoic petroleum in sedimentary basins in North Africa and elsewhere. Frequent reference is made to Oman, as a type example, with comments like 'more than 90% of Oman's current oil production is derived from Neoproterozoic-Early Cambrian source rocks'. Unfortunately, none of the four presentations made about Oman in 2006 are included in this book, and those syntheses of Oman that are included lack detail and local understanding. A further stated aim of the volume is to link Neoproterozoic climate change, as epitomized by the Cryogenian 'Snowball' glacial events, to the deposition of petroleum source rocks. The analogy is made to the Late Ordovician glacial meltwater-related reservoirs and Early Silurian source rocks of North Africa deposited during the subsequent global rise of sea level. The likely audience for the book is geologists working in oil exploration companies active in North Africa and also academics probing the Cryogenian-Ediacaran scientific frontier.

Here, I need to digress and summarize a little about Neoproterozoic oil in Oman. There are six main petroleum source systems in Oman, three of which are Neoproterozoic-Early Cambrian in age (Nafun, Ara and Q;Terken et al., 2001). Yes, the bulk of Oman's oil is derived from these sources. The types of organic matter available lead to geochemically distinctive hydrocarbons (Grosjean et al.