IBS Pannonian Basin project: a review of the main results and their bearings on hydrocarbon exploration

Abstract

Abstract The IBS Pannonian Basin project presents a good example of fruitful joint activity between Hungarian and other European scientists, and beneficial co-operation of academia and the petroleum industry. This allowed us to achieve significant progress in the understanding of the structure, tectonic evolution, stratigraphic features and hydrocarbon generation in the Pannonian Basin. The Pannonian region has been an integral part of the Alpine belt, and it reveals the complexity of orogenic evolution. Continental to oceanic rifting, followed by convergence, subduction and continental collision shaped the Palaeozoic-Mesozoic substrata of the region. Subsequently, two periods of basin formation (Late Cretaceous and Palaeogene) occurred, most probably in compressional setting. From the earliest Miocene large scale lateral displacement and block rotation took place in the internal domain of the orogen, together with the formation of the Pannonian Basin. This has been characterized by lithospheric extension, however, interrupted by compressional events. The modern Pannonian Basin is in an initial phase of positive structural inversion. All of these tectonic events had significant impacts on the formation and the economic value of the various petroleum systems in the area.