Plate Tectonic Models in Exploration
By: Craig Lang, Jean-Christophe Wrobel-Daveau, and Graeme Nicoll
“We are like a judge confronted by a defendant who declines to answer, and we must
determine the truth from the circumstantial evidence.”
Alfred Wegener — The Origin of Continents and Oceans, 1929
Geoscientists want to view and understand the Earth as it was and not just as it is now (Figure 1).
The advent of plate tectonics in the 20 th century ranks as one of the most important advancements
in geology, alongside the understanding of geological time. This advancement was possible due to
improvements in geoscience observation and surveying techniques, together with the accumulation
of geoscience data, in part driven by the exploration for natural resources. Plate tectonics has laid the
foundations for a considerably better understanding of the Earth’s evolution. It was, however, only since
the late 1960s that the theory of plate tectonics has been widely accepted (as reviewed by Wrobel-
Daveau and Nicoll, 2019); today, we regularly build on top of this solid foundation.
Understanding plate tectonics allows a geoscientist to reconstruct plate motions back in time, enabling
data to be reconstructed to their original paleo-positions. The ability to reconstruct continents and
Exploration Handbook | 21
oceans back through geological time is now a vital part of the
exploration geologist’s toolkit. A deeper understanding of the
relationships between geodynamic settings, natural resource
formation, and preservation enables plate tectonic models to
be used predictively in hydrocarbon exploration.
In this article, we explore how plate models can be used
within geoscience workflows, review what plate models are
and how they are constrained, and finally looks at how recent
applications and online tools are democratizing the use of plate
tectonic models across the geoscientific community.
APPLICATIONS OF PLATE MODELS TO
EXPLORATION
Geoscientists endeavor to understand and explain the
evolution of Earth using geological data. Data availability varies
in space and geological time; the extent to which a time period
or region has been explored often depends on its natural
resource endowment, accessibility, and preservation. Plate
models are valuable dynamic mapping tools, used to synthetize
all available geological data, and visualize these in their original
context, to support predictions, particularly in data-poor frontier
regions. Plate models allow us to:
» » Reconstruct data. Plate models are used to transform
data points from their present-day locations to their
positions at a given geological time. Geoscientists
use plate models to reconstruct a variety of data
types and interpretations, created on present-day
geography, back to their paleo-positions. By accounting
for the geodynamic context of formation or deposition
of natural resources (such as the individual elements
of a petroleum system), geoscientists can validate and
improve their interpretations and models.
Figure 1> Understanding what the Earth looked like and how its systems operated back through time is intrinsic to geological thinking.
» » Map palinspastically/paleogeographically. When
combined with sedimentological and stratigraphic data,
and with an understanding of geological time provided
alongside a sequence stratigraphic model, plate
models can support the creation of palinspastic gross
depositional environment maps (or ‘palinspastic’
maps). Palinspastic maps show deposition at a given
geological time or stratigraphic sequence, modeled
over a reconstructed paleogeography or the Earth
(Figure 2).
These maps enable the geoscientist to understand the
locations of potential reservoir, source, and seal facies
(Lang and Reynald, 2016). For carbonate systems, and
other depositional systems driven by environmental
parameters (e.g. latitude and bathymetry), palinspastic
maps allow the interpreter to validate their stratigraphic
model in the plate tectonic context. Furthermore, by
understanding drainage pathways and making source-
to-sink predictions, they enable clastic systems to be
“ Plate tectonics has laid the
foundations for a considerably
better understanding of the
Earth’s evolution. ”
20 | Halliburton Landmark