This publication is intended to provide the working geologist, geophysicist, and petroleum engineer with a broad overview of the petroleum systems of deepwater settings. Deepwater depositional systems are the one type of reservoir system that cannot be easily reached, observed, and studied in the modern environment, in contrast to other siliciclastic and carbonate reservoir systems. The study of deepwater systems requires many different remote observation techniques, each of which can only provide information on one part of the entire depositional system.

This book is based on the 2004 SEG/EAGE Distinguished Instructor Short Course, which provides geophysicists with a broad overview of the petroleum systems of deepwater settings. This review covers recent trends in deepwater deposits in terms of drilling results and introduces the elements of the petroleum system - reservoirs, traps, seals, source rock, migration, and timing. The book includes a summary of what is important in the exploration for and development of deepwater systems. The application of these techniques to each geophysicist's current projects is key, as is the difference between frontier exploration and exploration in mature basins with deeper potential. Examples from basins distributed globally illustrate the principles. These examples also demonstrate that there is deepwater potential in most basins globally.

The Black Sea remains one of the largest underexplored rift basins in the world. Future success is dependent on a better understanding of a number of geological uncertainties. These include reservoir and source rock presence and quality, and the timing of migration of hydrocarbons relative to trap formation. An appreciation of the geological history of the Black Sea basins and the surrounding orogens is therefore key. The timing of basin formation, uplift of the margins, and of facies distribution remain issues for robust debate. This Special Publication presents the results of 15 studies that relate to the tectono-stratigraphy and petroleum geology of the Black Sea. The methodologies of these studies encompass crustal structure, geodynamic evolution, stratigraphy and its regional correlation, petroleum systems, source to sink, hydrocarbon habitat and play concepts, and reviews of past exploration. They provide insight into the many ongoing controversies concerning Black Sea regional geology and provide a better understanding of the geological risks that must be considered for future hydrocarbon exploration.

Historically, submarine-mass failures or mass-transport deposits have been a focus of increasingly intense investigation by academic institutions particularly during the last decade, though they received much less attention by geoscientists in the energy industry. With recent interest in expanding petroleum exploration and production into deeper water-depths globally and more widespread availability of high-quality data sets, mass-transport deposits are now recognized as a major component of most deep-water settings. This recognition has lead to the realization that many aspects of these deposits are still unknown or poorly understood. This volume contains twenty-three papers that address a number of topics critical to further understanding mass-transport deposits. These topics include general overviews of these deposits, depositional settings on the seafloor and in the near-subsurface interval, geohazard concerns, descriptive outcrops, integrated outcrop and seismic data/seismic forward modeling, petroleum reservoirs, and case studies on several associated topics. This volume will appeal to a broad cross section of geoscientists and geotechnical engineers, who are interested in this rapidly expanding field. The selection of papers in this volume reflects a growing trend towards a more diverse blend of disciplines and topics, covered in the study of mass-transport deposits.