Inversion of multiple thermal indicators: Quantitative methods of determining paleoheat flux and geological parameters. II. Theoretical development for chemical, physical, and geological parameters

Abstract

Using the logic for quantitative inversion of present-day downhole thermal indicators, the inversion procedure can be used to determine unknown, or poorly known, chemical and physical parameters as well as other geological quantities of interest which impact on burial history and thermal history of an evolving sedimentary basin. Some such quantities are: amount of erosion and timing of unconformities, paleo-overpressuring, stratigraphic age, timing of igneous intrusion and insertion temperature, overthrust timing and frictional heating, fault and slump timing, effects due to emplacement of a radiocative layer, and salt emplacement and dissolution timing. Combining a priori unknown values of these chemical/physical and geological parameters with unknown (a priori) paleoheat flux variations, a theoretical scheme, called thermal indicator tomography, is developed for the systematic determination of all parameters at the same time and on the same footing. Case histories will be discussed in subsequent papers in this series.