Paper Summary
Recent discoveries (e.g., Cambriol and Cappahayden) at the Grand Banks, offshore Newfoundland reconfirm the increasingly promising hydrocarbon potential along the shelf and slope sections of this emerging North Atlantic basin. These discoveries, along with proven petroleum systems, evolving play concepts and ongoing 3D seismic acquisition campaigns, open up exciting running room for hydrocarbon exploration and potential to capture step-out opportunities for near-field developments. The new multisensor 3D seismic acquisition and processing technologies enabling effective demultiple, offer complete imaging of the rift-related petroleum systems and reveal new opportunities in the overlying Tertiary passive margin sequences. The Grand Banks shelf platform offshore Newfoundland was affected by three major divergent plate tectonic systems associated with the progressive opening of the Central and North Atlantic, respectively. The eastern Grand Banks shelf edge marks an intermediate stage in the northward migration of the Atlantic system. It is dominated by the separation of Iberia from Avalonia, which completed after a Jurassic to Cretaceous rift stage, documented throughout the Grand Banks subsurface. Regional seismic data from the outer Orphan Basin, provides tectonic evidence for a pull-apart basin that is transient into Riedel-shear dominated arrays of extensional faults, towards the prolific hydrocarbon domain of the Grand Banks distal shelf.