Thermal history of the Murzuq Basin, Libya, and generation of hydrocarbons in its source rocks

Abstract

The history of burial, temperature variations, and organic maturation in the sedimentary rocks of the Murzuq Basin in southwestern Libya was numerically reconstructed for eight wells and one pseudowell along northeast-southwest and northwest-southeast profiles across the basin. The reconstruction was performed using the GALO system for basin modeling taking into account that the basin lithosphere underwent repeated tectonic and thermal activation. The modeling allowed us to refine the reconstructions of the thermal history of the basin and assessment of its hydrocarbon potential obtained by previous models, which assumed a constant temperature gradient during the whole period of basin development. The Murzuq Basin is characterized by moderate basement subsidence (2200–2800 m), which would have corresponded in an ordinary basin to immature or early mature organic matter. However, the history of the basin included several periods of extensive uplift and subsidence, which were accompanied by the erosion of the sedimentary cover and thermal activation of the lithosphere. This resulted in variations in organic matter maturity reached in different segments of the basin and a peculiar distribution of the degree of maturation, which is higher at the flanks of the Murzuq Basin compared with the same rocks from deeper buried zones. Our modeling indicated that the rocks of the Tanezzuft Formation could generate significant volumes of liquid hydrocarbons at some areas of the basin, but the situation is strongly dependent on the depth of rock burial and amplitude of erosion of the sedimentary cover at various areas of the basin.