The accumulation characteristics and exploration potential of oil and gas in the back-arc basin of Japan under the background of high heat flow

Abstract

The Sea of Japan is located in the southeast margin of Eurasia, in the triangle area of the western Pacific Ocean. Due to the interaction of the Pacific plate, Eurasian plate and Philippine plate, its tectonic environment is complex, forming a typical trench-arc-basin system. At present, 148 oil and gas fields have been discovered in Japan, with an oil and gas resource of 255.78×10⁶ t, showing a good prospect for oil and gas exploration. Based on the previous research and the recently collected geological and geophysical data, the characteristics of tectonic-sedimentary evolution and geothermal field in the basins around the Sea of Japan are analyzed. The results show that the tectonic evolution of the basin is mainly controlled by plate subduction and back-arc oceanic crust expansion, and it mainly undergone four tectonic-sedimentary evolution stages: Subduction period, basin development period, subsidence period and compression deformation period. The overall heat flow value of Japan Sea is high, and it is distributed annularly along Yamato Ridge. The geothermal heat flow value is about 50-130 MW/m², and the average heat flow is 75.9±19.8 MW/m², which has a typical “hot basin”. The high heat flow background provides unique thermal evolution conditions for hydrocarbon generation, which leads to the high temperature and rapid evolution. The authors summarized as “early hydrocarbon generation, rapid maturity and shallow and narrow hydrocarbon generation window”. The type of oil and gas is mainly natural gas, and it mainly distributed in Neogene oil and gas reservoirs. The trap types are mainly structural traps, lithologic traps and composite traps. In addition, the pre-Neogene bedrock oil and gas reservoirs also show a good exploration prospect. The resource prospecting indicates that Niigata Basin, Ulleung Basin and kitakami Basin are the main target areas for future exploration and development.

Keywords

Oil and gas / Hydrocarbon generation capacity / Back-arc basin / Geothermal field / Tectono-sedimentary evolution / Hydrocarbon accumulation / The Sea of Japan / Western Pacific

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Jian-qiang Wang, Jie Liang and Jian-wen Chen prepared the manuscript. Qing-fang Zhao, Yin-guo Zhang, Jian-wei Zhang, Lee-Jel Jiang, Sen Li and Chang-qing Yang drew all the figures. Jian Zhang, Jing Sun, Chuan-sheng Yang and Yong Yuan supervised the findings of this work. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgment

This research was jointly supported by the Major Project of National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao) (2021QNLM020001-1, 2021QNLM020001-4), the Project of China Geology Survey (DD20221723, DD20230317), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41776075, 42076220 and 42206234), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2020QD038); the Major Basic Research Projects of Shandong Province (ZR2021ZD09). The APC was funded by the Qingdao Institute of Marine Geology, China Geological Survey. The reviewers have given valuable opinions and suggestions, and I would like to express my heartfelt thanks.

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