Chapter 41 Geology and petroleum potential of the West Greenland–East Canada Province
The US Geological Survey (USGS) assessed the potential for undiscovered oil and gas resources of the West Greenland–East Canada Province as part of the USGS Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal programme. The province lies in the offshore area between western Greenland and eastern Canada and includes Baffin Bay, Davis Strait, Lancaster Sound and Nares Strait west of and including part of Kane Basin. A series of major tectonic events led to the formation of several distinct structural domains that are the geological basis for defining five assessment units (AU) in the province, all of which are within the Mesozoic–Cenozoic Composite Petroleum System. Potential petroleum source rocks include strata of Ordovician, Lower and Upper Cretaceous, and Palaeogene ages. The five AUs defined for this study – the Eurekan Structures AU, NW Greenland Rifted Margin AU, NE Canada Rifted Margin AU, Baffin Bay Basin AU and the Greater Ungava Fault Zone AU – encompass the entire province and were assessed for undiscovered technically recoverable resources. The mean volumes of undiscovered resources for the West Greenland–East Canada Province are 10.7×109 barrels of oil, 75×1012 cubic feet of gas, and 1.7×109 barrels of natural gas liquids. For the part of the province that is north of the Arctic Circle, the estimated mean volumes of these undiscovered resources are 7.3×109 barrels of oil, 52×1012 cubic feet of natural gas, and 1.1×109 barrels of natural gas liquids.
