Joint reports
Onshore Azerbaijan Source Rock and Seep Study
- The executive companies: Geology Institute, Geochem Group Limited
- The year of publication: December 1994
- Code: 94/9140
- Volumes: total 5
volumes with appendixes in same amount: 5

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Within this suite of four hundred and ninety two (492) sediment samples from thirty seven (37) outcrop localities, good, very good and rich source rocks are most extensive in the Maykop and particularly in the (Middle and) Upper Maykop. Effective Maykopian source facies occur in an east-west zone from Shemakha and Angicharan in the west to Yunusdag and Gezdeg in the east (Figure 1). The available data suggest that the Maykopian is a poor source facies in the south of the study area but within the east-west zone, it is richest in the east. Good source rocks should be more extensive and dependable in the offshore.
Both the Koun and the Productive Series are lean and ineffective, but good to rich source rocks occur in the Diatom Suite, the Cretaceous and the Bathonian-Callovian. At most localities the Diatom Suite is poor, but there are a few metres of good to very good source in the Umbaki area and more significantly an extremely rich oil source facies at Deali in the west. Data suggest an hypersaline environment, in which case the rich facies could be fairly widespread in the onshore but absent in the offshore. A degree of restriction and therefore the same risk, is implied for the extremely rich oil source in the Late Cretaceous at Atacay. Unfortunately this was collected from a debris flow and so the thickness of this source unit cannot be defined.
However, as the Late Cretaceous is the postulated source for the two analysed seeps from the Shemakha area, it is presumably extensive. The seeps around and to the northwest of Umbaki were probably sourced from the Early Maykop whilst those on the Apsheron Peninsula are from the Upper Maykop.
None of the analysed seeps relate to the Diatom Suite or to the Late Bathonian - Early Callovian at Tengi Alti in the north, which includes a substantial thickness of good and very good source rocks for oil. However, shows are present in the Jurassic at Jimichai and the Jurassic source facies could be extensive.
There are therefore, good source rocks in the Diatom Suite, Upper Maykop, Middle Maykop, Early Maykop, Late Cretaceous and Middle Jurassic. The Upper and Middle Maykop belong to a geochemical continuum but otherwise, each of these units and their products can be distinguished geochemically.
Following a presentation of the Stratigraphy and Palaeogeography (Chapters 3 and 4), the Geochemical interpretations and conclusions produced in this study are discussed in detail in Chapters 6 through 10.
CONTENTS
Text Figure 1: Summary
2. INTRODUCTION
Text Figure 2: Source Rock and Seep Locations
3. STRATIGRAPHY OF THE STUDY AREA
4. ALAEOGEOGRAPHIC RECONSTRUCTION
5. SOURCE ROCK IMPLICATIONS FROM STRATIGRAPHY AND GIA ARCHIVE
Text Table 3: Natural Radioactivity from the Rocks of Azerbaijan
6. REGIONAL SOURCE ROCK GEOCHEMISTRY
Text Figure 10: Source Rock Distribution
7. SOURCE ROCK GROUPINGS
8. SEEP EVALUATION
9. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
10. GEOCHEMICAL EVALUATION OF OUTCROP LOCALITIES
Unless noted otherwise, Text Figures with the prefix "L" are photographs and sketches of the sampling localities. Those without a prefix refer to plots of source facies and pyrolysis results against logs. Chromatograms, histograms, mass fragmentograms and tabulated data are located in the Appendices. Numbers in the left hand margin are the Locality numbers
- QORDUCOY RIVER (AG)
- MESARINSK (MS)
- ANGICHARAN (ANG) Text Figures L-1, 3-1, 2
- SHIKHZAIRLY (SZG) Text Figures L-1, L-2, 4-1, 2
- ANGICHARAN VALLEY (AV) Text Figure L-3
- XILMILLI RIVER (K) Text Figures L-3, L-4, 6-1, 2
- XILMILLI VALLEY (KV)
- KOZLYCHAI RIVER (KR) Text Figures L-5, 8-1, 2
- LAHIC RIVER (LE) Text Figures 9-1, 2
- GALA ALTI CASTLE (T)
- ATACAY RIVER (ALR)
- ALTIAGAC VILLAGE (ALT) Text Figures L-8, 12-1, 2
- ATACAY DEBRIS FLOW (ALD)
- GILGILCAY RIVER (GCR)
- GILGILCAY RIVER - JURASSIC RIDGE (GCR)
- GILGILCAY RIVER (GCR) Text Figure L-8
- GILGILCAY RIVER (GCR) Text Figures L-9, 17-1, 2
17A GILGILCAY RIVER (GCR)
- TENGI ALTI GORGE (TAG) Text Figures L-9, 18-1, 2
- TUGCAY RIVER (AGA)
- GYADYSU (GYA) Text Figure L-10
- PEREKYUSHKYUL (PER) Text Figures L-10, 11, 12, 21-1, 2
- YUNUSDAG (YUN) Text Figure L-13
- XILMILLI (MAY, MAYB) Text Figures 23-1,2. See L-5
- UMBAKI (UMB) Text Figure L-3
- UMBAKI (UMB)
- UMBAKI (UMB)
- UMBAKI (UMB) Text Figures 27-1, 2
- UMBAKI (RAM) Text Figures L-16, 17, 28-1, 2
- SHIKHZAIRLY (SZG) Text Figures 29-1, 2
- SHIKHZAIRLY (SZG) Text Figures L18, 30-1, 2
- GEZDEG (GUZ Text Figure L-17
- BADIRI (BD) Text Figures L-19, 32-1, 2
- BOYANATA (BO) Text Figures 33-1, 2
- SIYAKI (S) Text Figures L-22, 34, 2
35A KIRMAKY VALLEY (KV/MS) Text Figure L-23
- DEALI (DE)
- JIMICHAI (J) Text Figures L-24, L-25, 37-1, 2