Abstract As new plays emerge in deepwater settings, sea surface slicks are often overlooked as a source of geochemical information to help define potential petroleum systems. To demonstrate how sea surface hydrocarbon slicks can be used, a case study is presented from the eastern Black Sea in the Rioni Basin, offshore Republic of Georgia. There source rocks of Oligo-Miocene age (Maikop) are suspected of charging upper Miocene deepwater channel-levee sands in fold and thrust system traps. To reduce exploration risk, direct evidence of hydrocarbon generation and migration was sought using sea surface slicks observed there. To provide confirmation of charge, a collection of diverse data was used. First, synthetic aperture radar satellite images were utilized to verify the presence of large recurring sea surface slicks over prospective structures. These slicks were then sampled for later analysis during the acquisition of 3-D seismic data. To verify that the slicks were related to the subsurface expulsion, seafloor bathymetric and amplitude data were extracted from the 3-D seismic volume and used to identify potential seafloor features consistent with hydrocarbon seepage. Some of these seafloor features were found to be coincident with the apparent sea surface origins of the slicks. Seismic imaging was also used to demonstrate potential migration pathways which may link suspected deep subsurface traps and the seafloor. And finally, geochemical analysis showed that the compositional characteristics of the slicks’ hydrocarbons were similar to known Maikop sourced oils in the region. This combination of data provided a high level of confidence that the seismically imaged traps in offshore Republic of Georgia are charged, suggesting a working petroleum system was present. What it cannot tell us is how much petroleum may be in these structures. That question can only be answered by the drill bit.

中文翻译：

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使用 SAR 成像、海面浮油采样和地球物理海底特征降低寻找工作石油系统的风险：以格鲁吉亚近海黑海盆地东部的示例

摘要 随着深水环境中新油气藏的出现，海面浮油作为帮助定义潜在石油系统的地球化学信息来源经常被忽视。为了演示如何使用海面浮油，我们在格鲁吉亚共和国近海的里奥尼盆地黑海东部进行了案例研究。渐进一中新世 (Maikop) 烃源岩被怀疑在褶皱和逆冲系统圈闭中充填上中新世深水河道堤砂。为了降低勘探风险，使用在那里观察到的海面浮油寻找碳氢化合物生成和迁移的直接证据。为了提供费用确认，使用了一系列不同的数据。首先，利用合成孔径雷达卫星图像来验证预期结构上是否存在大型重复出现的海面浮油。然后在采集 3-D 地震数据期间对这些浮油进行采样，用于后续分析。为了验证浮油与地下排出有关，从 3-D 地震体积中提取了海底测深和振幅数据，并用于识别与碳氢化合物渗漏一致的潜在海底特征。发现其中一些海底特征与浮油的明显海面起源一致。地震成像也被用来展示潜在的迁移路径，这些路径可能将可疑的深层地下陷阱和海底联系起来。最后，地球化学分析表明，浮油的碳氢化合物的组成特征与该地区已知的迈科普产油相似。这种数据组合提供了高度可信的信息，即格鲁吉亚共和国近海的地震成像圈闭被充电，表明存在有效的石油系统。它无法告诉我们的是这些结构中可能含有多少石油。这个问题只能由钻头来回答。