Dr. Martin Fowler, Applied Petroleum Technology (APT)
To date, there have only been minor petroleum discoveries in the deep water central Atlantic between the conjugate margins of Nova Scotia and Morocco. The presence of potential source rock intervals which contain sufficient organic matter of the right type to generate economic quantities of petroleum has been identified as the major exploration risk in this area. Evidence will be reviewed for the presence of working petroleum systems in this area, including data from the shallow water Scotian Shelf, recent piston-coring cruises on the Scotian Shelf and from wells drilled offshore and onshore Morocco. This is used to speculate on the age and type of possible petroleum source rocks that could be present and what are the differences and similarities between the Nova Scotia and Morocco conjugate margins.