Regional hydrocarbon potential of the northeastern Caribbean based on integration of sediment thickness and source rock maturity data

2020 ◽  
pp. SP504-2019-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis Tillman ◽  
Paul Mann

AbstractOver 72 exploration wells have been drilled on the Caribbean islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico over the past century, but with no commercial success. A question is whether these Caribbean oceanic islands have experienced sufficient subsidence and burial for any potential source rocks to reach maturity and produce commercial hydrocarbons. Subsurface data from previous studies were compiled into a regional depth to basement and sediment thickness map for Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and their offshore areas. The thickest basins include the Enriquillo/Cul-de-Sac basin (6.3 km), San Juan/Plateau Central basin (5 km), Azua basin (2.8 km), Cibao basin (5 km), North Coast basin (2.5 km), South Coast basin (1.3 km), Haiti sub-basin (3.7 km), Hispaniola basin (3.5 km) and San Pedro basin (3 km). One-dimensional modelling for six onland basins shows that only the Azua basin of the south-central Dominican Republic has reached sufficient maturity to place potential source rocks into the oil window. Our study shows that commercial hydrocarbons are possible in the deeper basins – Azua basin, San Juan–Plateau Central basin and Cibao basin of Hispaniola – but unlikely in the shallower basins that lack sufficient overburden for organic maturity.

1995 ◽  
Vol 1995 (1) ◽  
pp. 707-710
Author(s):  
Edwin M. Stanton

ABSTRACT The tank barge Morris J. Berman grounded on January 7, 1994, spilling at least 750,000 gallons of low API fuel oil onto the most heavily used beaches of San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the height of tourist season. The vessel's condition deteriorated rapidly due to heavy ocean swells. Most of the discharged oil was blown directly ashore into three natural containment basins. The rest beached in varying quantities along 65 kilometers of shoreline on the north coast from Loiza to Punta Borinquen. On January 8, lightering and salvage operations commenced, the barge was removed from strand on January 15, towed offshore, and scuttled approximately 28 kilometers north of San Juan in 1,000 fathoms of water. Response operations were complicated by the large quantities of oil that sank while retaining its original viscosity and remaining highly mobile. This required a technically, logistically, and financially demanding cleanup operation involving diving, dredging, sand removal, sand washing, sand replacement, and biodegradation.


Author(s):  
Niels Hemmingsen Schovsbo ◽  
Arne Thorshøj Nielsen

The Lower Palaeozoic succession in Scandinavia includes several excellent marine source rocks notably the Alum Shale, the Dicellograptus shale and the Rastrites Shale that have been targets for shale gas exploration since 2008. We here report on samples of these source rocks from cored shallow scientific wells in southern Sweden. The samples contain both free and sorbed hydrocarbon gases with concentrations significantly above the background gas level. The gases consist of a mixture of thermogenic and bacterially derived gas. The latter likely derives from both carbonate reduction and methyl fermentation processes. The presence of both thermogenic and biogenic gas in the Lower Palaeozoic shales is in agreement with results from past and present exploration activities; thermogenic gas is a target in deeply buried, gas-mature shales in southernmost Sweden, Denmark and northern Poland, whereas biogenic gas is a target in shallow, immature-marginally mature shales in south central Sweden. We here document that biogenic gas signatures are present also in gas-mature shallow buried shales in Skåne in southernmost Sweden.


Insects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Matthew W. Hopken ◽  
Limarie J. Reyes-Torres ◽  
Nicole Scavo ◽  
Antoinette J. Piaggio ◽  
Zaid Abdo ◽  
...  

Urban ecosystems are a patchwork of habitats that host a broad diversity of animal species. Insects comprise a large portion of urban biodiversity which includes many pest species, including those that transmit pathogens. Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) inhabit urban environments and rely on sympatric vertebrate species to complete their life cycles, and in this process transmit pathogens to animals and humans. Given that mosquitoes feed upon vertebrates, they can also act as efficient samplers that facilitate detection of vertebrate species that utilize urban ecosystems. In this study, we analyzed DNA extracted from mosquito blood meals collected temporally in multiple neighborhoods of the San Juan Metropolitan Area, Puerto Rico to evaluate the presence of vertebrate fauna. DNA was collected from 604 individual mosquitoes that represented two common urban species, Culex quinquefasciatus (n = 586) and Aedes aegypti (n = 18). Culex quinquefasciatus fed on 17 avian taxa (81.2% of blood meals), seven mammalian taxa (17.9%), and one reptilian taxon (0.85%). Domestic chickens dominated these blood meals both temporally and spatially, and no statistically significant shift from birds to mammals was detected. Aedes aegypti blood meals were from a less diverse group, with two avian taxa (11.1%) and three mammalian taxa (88.9%) identified. The blood meals we identified provided a snapshot of the vertebrate community in the San Juan Metropolitan Area and have potential implications for vector-borne pathogen transmission.


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