Thermal maturity history of the Upper Permian succession in the Wegener Halvø area, East Greenland

Abstract

The Upper Permian succession, which is considered the most interesting exploration target in Jameson Land, is thermally postmature in the Wegener Halvø area, in contrast to the exposed immature sediments along the western margin of the Jameson Land basin and further north between Traill Ø and Wollaston Forland. Ranking based on T_max, Hydrogen Index, R_o, Ge and IR data points to a rather constant thermal maturity throughout most of Wegener Halvø (in the upper wet gas zone) with lower maturity towards the south-west in Devondal (in the lower oil zone). The relatively uniform maturity pattern, combined with known thickness of overlying sediments, suggests that regionally increased heat flow in the Tertiary related to the break-up of the North Atlantic, controls the maturity.