Eslan’s North America Basement Study uses integrated gravity, magnetic, and structural interpretations generating new detail of fault structure, depth-to-basement and sediment thickness maps including approximately 140 sedimentary basins.

The North America Basement Study covers the sedimentary basins that provide a basic geologic framework for compiling more detailed geologic and reservoir data helping to both identify potentially productive sedimentary basin areas and identify potential controlling structures. On a basin scale, depth-to-basement analyses provide important constraint for source rock maturity modeling and for understanding the local thermal regime in both conventional and unconventional exploration settings.

We continue to update this North America Basement Study to generate a detailed continental depth-to-basement reference architecture of the hydrocarbon basins.

Key Deliverables

  • 2.5 km grids of depth-to-basement, sediment thickness, depth-to-Moho and crustal thickness

  • Open GIS (ArcGIS™ compatible) project

  • Confidence polygons

  • Short technical report outlining the methodologies and results

Supporting datasets for this North America Basement Study include:

  • A comprehensive literature review, which supplies a knowledge database of published seismic data and well
  • Tilt Depth information that, in turn, both provide constraints on and validation of the depth-to-basement results.
  • Our continental structures and surface geology databases.

The North America Basement Study is divided into a subset of related groups of North America Basement basins making purchasing easier.

Outlines of Cenozoic and Mesozoic basins are usually more reliable than outlines of Paleozoic and Neoproterozoic basins. Outlines of older basins which are overlain by younger basins are less reliable than basins which have never been overprinted by younger geologic activities. Problems remaining in the data set are associated with poorly defined basin outlines in the references used to create the basin outlines.

Any gaps in the data are commonest in incomplete data sets for Paleozoic and Neoproterozoic basins. Basin borders were identified by structural closure rather than stratigraphic thickness. Depending on the user’s concept of basins and basin forming mechanisms, this may cause misunderstandings as to the extent of any of the basins.

The majority of the data used in this compilation was taken from maps at scales of 1:2,500,000 and 1:5,000,000. Additional, supplemental data were taken from a variety of larger scale, smaller area, maps. The shapefile polygon data in this data base are reconnaissance in nature and best used at scales no larger than 1:1,000,000.

CONTACT US for both a quotation for the North American basement studies regions we provide