The Pelotas Basin Oil Province Revealed – New Interpretation from Long Offset 2D Seismic Data

T he Pelotas Basin is a relatively unexplored hydrocarbon province comprising a 500,000 km2 passive margin located on the southeast coast of Brazil and northern Uruguay (Figure 1). Over much of the area thick Tertiary and Cretaceous clastic deltaic and pro-deltaic sequences are underlain by syn-rift and early-drift seaward dipping reflectors (Abreu, 1998) interpreted as Aptian and pre-Aptian age. The lack of post-Albian volcanics in this basin is markedly different to the more northerly Atlantic marginal basins such as Santos, Campos, Espirito Santo, and Sergipe Basins.