Minerals Report - International Seabed Authority

and the basins like the Gulf of Mexico and the Sahara-Mediterranean basin
as well as the isolated synclines and intracratonic rift grabens such as the
Baffin or Red Sea basins. Within fold belt basins such as the Los Angeles
or Gippsland basins and foredeep basins like the Orinoco and Lower
Indus basins also have deep-sea extensions. The structural framework of
these three basin groups, the basin fill, and hydrocarbon accumulations
were formed in compliance with the geologic evolution of the respective
onshore structures. On the other hand, there are basins, whose evolution
was closely connected with the geologic evolution of the oceans. These
basins are the marginal pericontinental basins of ancient and modern
passive continental margins at the junctions of platforms and
thalassocratons, e.g. the Gulf of Guinea, Campos, or Carnarvon basins,
and the marginal perioceanic basins of active continental margins and
modern island arcs, often including the sedimentary lenses of trench
facies. The deepwater parts of these basins mostly occur in oceans.
Closed sea basins are vast shallow-water seas with subordinate deepwater
basins. The shelves of these basins are characterized by fairly high
exploration coverage, and the petroleum potential of adjacent deep-sea
basins can be estimated by analogy with a high degree of confidence. The
basin onsets in the marginal continent-to-ocean zone are essentially
different from the above-mentioned group of basins. Sediment
accumulation within them took place in open-marine environment, at least
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