Abstract
The Potiguar basin is the eastermost basin on the Brazilian equatorial margin and covers an area of 48,000 km/sup 2/. The basin extends from about 200 km landward of the coastline out beneath the present continental shelf and slope to a water depth of 2,000 m. It contains a sedimentary sequence more than 8 kim thick, which filled the asymmetric grabens that developed at an early stage of South American/Africa breakup in the Neocomian. Presently, 28 oil fields have been discovered; 23 onshore and 5 offshore. These fields contain proved oil reserves of 35 x 10/sup 6/ m/sup 3/ and occur in structures formed during the stretching and cooling stages of the tectonic evolution of the basin. Two main groups of petroleum habitats are distinguished according to structure type and reservoir-source rock association. During the stretching stage, grabens were formed and filled with lacustrine, deltaic, and deltaic fan sediments. These sediments were affected by gravity sliding, northeast-southwest normal faulting, and east-west strike-slip faulting. These movements created the closures that formed the oil accumulations. Producing reservoirs consist of coarse to fine-grained sandstones closely associated with the source rocks.
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