Tectonic Heat Flow Models - Workflow and Cases

To obtain a pragmatic workflow solution for tectonic heat flow prediction, we have developed in the recent years a multi-1D probabilistic tectonic heat flow model, which is capable of calculating tectonic heat flows, incorporating a variety of tectonic scenarios (including rifting, underplating, mantle upwelling). The model has been applied for a range of basin settings. For (frontier) deep water basins in the Caribbean and Mediterranean regions, we show that basin maturation is significantly higher and occuring much earlier when adopting tectonic heat flow instead of a constant heat flow. For mature basins such as in the Netherlands, we show that tectonic heat flow scenarios considerably aid in identifying and understanding of unexplored play systems, by putting temporal and spatial constraints on paleo heat flow. In particular modelling results indicate that the interplay of rifting, underplating and foreland formation and inversion, has resulted in much stronger temporal and spatial tectonic heat flow variations than hithertoo assumed.