21CXRM: Palaeozoic Petroleum Systems GIS Maps for UK Offshore Regions

GIS versions of regional structural summaries and palaeogeographic reconstructions for the Palaeozoic geology of UK offshore and onshore areas, produced by the British Geological Survey between November 2014 and May 2016. The project focused on Devonian and Carboniferous rocks in regions including the Mid North Sea High, Central North Sea, Moray Firth, Orcadian Basin, and the greater Irish Sea area. Interpretations were based on well, seismic, gravity-magnetic, and source rock data, integrated with petrophysical studies and basin modelling.

Use Cases

• Regional basin analysis for hydrocarbon exploration based on structural and palaeogeographic GIS layers.
• Integrating interpreted well and seismic data for petroleum systems modeling.
• Stimulating exploration activity by improving digital datasets of underexplored Palaeozoic systems.

Strengths

• Peer-reviewed products produced for a formal project by the British Geological Survey.
• Interpretations integrate multiple data types: well, seismic, gravity-magnetic, and source rock datasets.
• GIS layers are digitized for use at regional scales between 1:1,000,000 and 1:3,000,000.

Limitations

• Unreleased raw data is excluded, and UK Government Seismic data from 2016 is not included.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and specific file formats are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

British Geological Survey (BGS)

Collection Method

Data were collated and interpreted from extensive well, seismic, gravity-magnetic, and source rock datasets, integrated with petrophysical studies and basin modelling.

Time Range

Project conducted between November 2014 and May 2016.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-09 08:34:52.446768; freshness should be verified.

Geography

UK offshore and onshore, specifically the Mid North Sea High, Central North Sea, Moray Firth, Orcadian Basin, and greater Irish Sea area.