North Atlantic Region
The North Atlantic margins host a number of important hydrocarbon bearing provinces and are sites for active and in-development carbon capture and underground storage projects. CASP research provides critical data, often collected in challenging environments, to aid both hydrocarbon exploration and, increasingly, the energy transition.
Map of Region
History of Research
CASP’s origins in 1975 are in the northern part of this region, on the Barents shelf, the gateway to the Arctic. Since then our research and expertise in the North Atlantic region has continued to evolve and expand. In addition to Spitsbergen, extensive fieldwork has been undertaken in East Greenland; other field areas include the Faroes, Portugal, the Canary Islands, Senegambia and Cabo Verde. Our work in the North Atlantic benefits from the wider perspective of projects conducted in Arctic Canada and Arctic Russia. It also forms the main springboard for our research aiding the energy transition.
Key Geological Topics Covered
Multiple topics have been covered in this core area for CASP research. They relate to improving our understanding of its tectonic evolution, stratigraphic development and hydrocarbon systems. Source-to-sink and integrated biostratigraphic studies form important additional components. As elsewhere, CASP research continues to combine multidisciplinary studies of regions and individual sedimentary basins, based on a combination of original fieldwork, analytical studies, and critical synthesis of data and literature. Active super-regional and generic studies include the investigation of the geological evolution of the Mauritanian to Porcupine basins on the eastern side of the Atlantic and the Baltimore Canyon Trough to Orphan basins on the western side of the Atlantic, and the impact of flood basalts on hydrocarbon systems. Details of other, more geographically restricted, research areas can be found on our East Greenland and Mid-Norway, SE Greenland and Faroe-Shetland Islands and Western Barents Shelf sub-region pages.
Active Research Projects
- Barents Shelf Provenance Project 2017-2019
- North Atlantic Margins Evolution Project (NAME) 2017-2019
- Flood Basalt Impact on Hydrocarbon Systems Project 2019-2021
- Flood Basalt Impact on Hydrocarbon Systems Project 2016-2018
Most Recent Reports
- Late Carboniferous to Early Permian reservoir development on the Stappen High: New insight from field and photogrammetric surveys of Bjørnøya CASP.BPP2017-19.23
- Senegambian modern river sand provenance study – links with ancient depositional systems of the MSGBC Basin CASP.NAME2017-19.18
- Life at the continental – marine interface: palaeoenvironments and biota of the Alcobaça Formation (Late Jurassic, central Portugal) CASP.NAME2017-19.17
- Geological history of Bjørnøya through virtual outcrop models CASP.BPP2017-19.22
- Controls on the magnetic susceptibilities of volcanic lithologies CASP.FBP2019-21.18