Early maturation of organic matter and genesis of hydrocarbons as a result of heat from a shallow piercement salt dome

The Primrose Prospect lies 48 km east of Sable Island on the Scotian Shelf below 80 km of water. The subsurface geology is characterized by the presence of Jurassic salt that has pierced the early Cretaceous sediments and uplifted late Cretaceous and early Tertiary beds to provide localized structural closure, shale compaction, and anomalously high heat gradients in the younger sediments overlying the salt mass.The reservoir rocks interbedded with the compacted shales contain wet gas, condensate, and 31° API oil. The organic matter in these shales, which consists essentially of amorphous material, has undergone thermal alteration and maturation at a very shallow depth, a condition not apparent in coeval beds elsewhere in the area. This localized alteration of the organic matter is considered to have occurred in response to the thermal and pressure effects of the underlying halokinetic structure and could have resulted in the genesis of the mature hydrocarbons.