Physical Principles of Sedimentary Basin Analysis

Presenting a rigorous treatment of the physical and mechanical basis for the modelling of sedimentary basins, this book supplies geoscientists with practical tools for creating their own models. It begins with a thorough grounding in properties of porous media, linear elasticity, continuum mechanics and rock compressibility. Chapters on heat flow, subsidence, rheology, flexure and gravity consider sedimentary basins in the context of the Earth's lithosphere, and the book concludes with coverage of pore space cementation, compaction and fluid flow. The volume introduces basic, state-of-the-art models and demonstrates how to reproduce results using tools like MATLAB® and Octave. Main equations are derived from first principles, and their basic solutions are obtained and then applied. Separate notes sections supply more technical details, and the text is illustrated throughout with real-world examples, applications and test exercises. This is an accessible introduction to quantitative modelling of basins for graduate students, researchers and oil industry professionals.

Magnus Wangen has worked in the field of sedimentary basin-modelling since the late 1980s - conducting research on a wide range of topics. He obtained a Dr Scient. degree in applied mathematics from Universitetet i Oslo in 1993 with a thesis on the modelling of heat- and fluid-flow in sedimentary basins. Since the early 1990s he has developed two complementary basin simulators used by the oil industry. The first simulator deals with heat flow on a lithospheric scale, fluid flow, compaction, and overpressure in sedimentary basins through the geo-history, while the second simulates hydrocarbon generation and migration. He is currently a research scientist at the Institute for Energy Technology in Norway. This book is based on a course in basin analysis that Dr Wangen taught for a number of years while an Assistant Professor at the University Graduate Center (an affiliate of Universitetet i Oslo at Kjeller).