This study has devised and applied an integrative workflow involving chronostratigraphy, paleoenvironment, pyrolysis, palynofacies, and kinetics to qualify the source rock systems of the Central and North Atlantic conjugate margins (Figure 1). The project has established a unified high-resolution (+/- 0.5 Ma best resolution) Mesozoic and Cenozoic chronostratigraphy with the delineation of regional unconformities for the 41 stratigraphically deepest available DSDP-ODP-IODP sites, industry, and COST wells that display four stratigraphic intervals with source rock potential on a regional scale. These intervals have been characterized in considerable detail for source rock properties such as richness, quality, preservation, maturity and kinetic parameters (Figure 2). A new organic matter end-member classification is proposed for the Central and North Atlantic source rocks with two categories that have not been described previously from the studied areas. The Gas-Oil Ratio (GOR) and Source Potential Index (SPI) were calculated through mass balance equations considering the net thickness of each of the identified source rock intervals, and used as a ranking metric to high-grade the basins and focus areas evaluated herein.

Sector I: Central Atlantic Ocean

Delimited by the Sierra Leone Fracture Zone in the south, and the Newfoundland Azores Fracture Zone (NAFZ) in the north. Includes conjugate margins of the east coast of the USA and West Africa (Morocco to Senegal).

Sector II: North Atlantic Ocean

Delimited by the NAFZ in the south, and the Davis Strait/Greenland Iceland Faroe Rise in the north. Including key areas of offshore eastern Canada (Scotian Margin, Newfoundland & Labrador Sea) and its conjugate in the Rockall/Porcupine Trough, Iberia and Bay of Biscay, this is a subsequently rifted segmented of Jurassic age dominated by Upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) source rocks.