"Salt-dome areas should be purposefully studied in Russia in order to conduct the prospecting and exploration of inter-salt hydrocarbon deposits," said Victor Groshev, the candidate of geological and mineralogical sciences, the expert of the Seismic Data Interpretation Department of AO Tsentralnaya geofizicheskaya expeditsiya (CGE, Moscow, the company is a part of Rosgeo state parent company), at the international geological and geophysical conference "Modern technologies for Eurasian subsoil study and development" (GeoEurasia-2019).

He reported on the work in the mentioned areas and the project, which was implemented by the CGE.

Specialists of the enterprise re-processed and reinterpreted seismic exploration of 2D MOGT on the northern side of the Caspian depression. "The quality of the field data and further processing of 2D profiles, conducted in the CGE, is high enough, but the cardinal limits of the profile work in the conditions of strong salt-dome tectonics don’t allow to get reliable data on the internal structure of the subsalt deposits,” said the expert. "Only 3D seismic exploration will significantly improve the seismologic record resolution and allow to spot the missed objects, for example, possible organogenous fragmented alluvial cones from the Paleozoic marginal ledge."

Victor Groshev believes that there’s a new direction of prospecting works in the Russian Caspian, i.e. sea-salt and inter-salt deposits, in particular sub-salt traps. Such objects have been identified and mapped at the site; prospective resources were evaluated, the halokinetic model of their formation was proposed.  Salt overhang, which controls oil fields, is well known in Kazakhstan. However, its exploration is not enough in Russia, although the salt-dome basin is spread in the north, in the juncture of the Sol-Iletsk arch, the Caspian syneclise and the Pre-Ural foreland basin (Orenburg tectonic knot).

Source: rosgeo.com