Burial and Thermal History Modelling of Sedimentary Basins

Simulates the burial, compaction and thermal history of a sedimentary basin in one dimension, for geologists and stratigraphers. A basin is described by one row per stratigraphic unit and one row per erosion event, from which deposition phases, hiatuses, layer stacks, maximum-burial windows and grain (solid) thicknesses are derived. Compaction follows an exponential porosity-depth law and is irreversible, so uplifted layers keep the porosity acquired at their deepest burial. Temperatures follow the steady-state conductive geotherm of a layered column with radiogenic heat production. The methods follow the textbook treatment of Allen and Allen (2013, ISBN:978-0-470-67377-5). Functions are included to draw a composite figure of burial, temperature and hydrocarbon generation windows and a petroleum system event chart.

BasinmodlR

BasinmodlR is an R package for one-dimensional (1D) burial, compaction and thermal history modelling of sedimentary basins. It is aimed at geologists and stratigraphers who want to reconstruct how deep a stratigraphic unit was buried, how much it was compacted and how hot it became through geological time, starting from a stratigraphic column. A basin is described by two small tables, one row per stratigraphic unit and one row per erosion event. From these tables the package derives deposition phases, hiatuses, layer stacks, maximum-burial windows and grain (solid) thicknesses. Compaction follows an exponential porosity-depth law and is irreversible, so that uplifted layers keep the porosity they acquired at their deepest burial. Temperatures are the steady-state conductive geotherm of the layered column including radiogenic heat production. The methods follow Allen and Allen (2013). The package includes functions to draw a composite figure of the burial path, temperature and hydrocarbon generation windows, and a petroleum system event chart.

Installation

Install the released version from CRAN with:

install.packages("BasinmodlR")

You can install the development version of BasinmodlR from GitHub with:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("stratigraphy/BasinmodlR")

Example

library(BasinmodlR)

# Burial and thermal history of the Huy section (Condroz inlier, Belgium)
res <- run_basin_model(condroz)
res

# Burial path, temperature and hydrocarbon generation windows
plot_basin_model(res)

# Petroleum system event chart
plot_event_chart(res,
                 source_units = c(2, 4),
                 reservoir_units = 5,
                 seal_units = 5,
                 trap_formation = data.frame(start = 320, end = 295),
                 critical_moment = 310)

Burial path, temperature and hydrocarbon generation windows of the Huy section

Petroleum system event chart of the Huy section

Reference

Allen, P.A. and Allen, J.R. (2013). Basin Analysis: Principles and Application to Petroleum Play Assessment, 3rd ed. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, 632 p. ISBN 978-0-470-67377-5.