Assessing the Impact of Magmatic Activity on Hydrocarbon Generation in the Namibe Basin (ANGOLA)

Summary Assessing the impact of magmatic activity on source rock maturation and hydrocarbon generation is highly critical when evaluating the prospectivity of volcanically influenced sedimentary basins. An integrated organic geochemistry and petrographic study was conducted on a variety of bitumen samples and candidate source rocks from the Namibe Basin of Angola, which was affected by multiple magmatic events. Analyses suggest that multiple processes of hydrocarbon generation and emplacement took place, including locally forced thermal maturation of otherwise immature source rocks and source rock thermal maturation via conventional basin-scale burial processes. Imminent future analyses include vitrinite reflectivity and 1-D modelling to characterise the basin thermal regime and quantitatively assess the impact of magmatic activity on source rock maturation and hydrocarbon generation.