Paper Summary
In 2009 TGS acquired 2,770 km2 of multi-client seismic data in the southwestern Barents Sea across the Hoop Fault Complex covering acreage nominated in the recent Norwegian 21st licence round. The Hoop Fault Complex (HFC) derives its name from the vessel “de Hoop” used by Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz and is a swarm of northeast-southwest trending normal faults with a strike-slip component cutting across the Loppa High and the Bjarneland Platform (Gabrielsen et al. 1990). The survey (figure 1) images the northernmost part of the Maud Basin and the greater part of the platform immediately to the northeast. The area was subject to significant uplift in late Jurassic/early Cretaceous times resulting in late Cenozoic glacial erosion estimated to be in the region of 1900 metres (Løseth et al. 1992). Across the survey a strong unconformable Base Quaternary reflector (BQU) follows the water bottom at an interval of ~ 60 milliseconds strongly attenuating primary energy.
