Tectonism is associated with uplift and exhumation but are commonly difficult to decipher due to large gaps in the stratigraphic record. Northern Central Vietnam has a highly dynamic exhumation and tectonic history affected by Middle Paleozoic and latest Permian to Triassic orogenies but also less known younger events. We explore this history through analysis of apatite fission tracks (AFT) together with stratigraphy and vitrinite reflectance, seismic data and new U/Pb zircon-ages. Late Cretaceous and Paleocene uplift and exhumation are here attributed to a poorly understood orogenic event. It was followed by mid- to Late Cenozoic doming and rift pulses and intervening periods of subsidence and basin development associated with regional SE Asian tectonism and establishment of South China Sea basins. We document the evolution of NW-striking structural lineaments in northern Central Vietnam and their repeated reactivation. The complex Central Vietnamese fault block mosaic formed since the Paleozoic during different tectonic events associated with movements over these structural lineaments. Fault blocks were exhumed during Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic uplift phases, recorded by AFT in four discrete thermotectonic episodes around 82-70, 61-59, 43-42, and 19-15 Ma. The NW-striking crustal lineaments controlled deformation and uplift during Middle Paleozoic, latest Permian to Triassic and Late Cretaceous to Early Cenozoic orogenies. While the two former orogenies are well-known, the latter is poorly realized despite its super-regional nature across Indochina and SE China. It may relate to plate collision and the cessation of Paleo-Pacific subduction underneath SE Asia. Between the orogenic episodes, rifting reactivated the NW-striking crustal lineaments in the Carboniferous-Permian, Late Triassic and mid-Cenozoic causing basin development in Central Vietnam and neighboring areas. The mid-Cenozoic event led to the opening of the Hue Sub-basin at the Gulf of Tonkin margin. Uplift and one to one-and-a-half kilometer post-rift erosion sourced sediments to this sub-basin, including Upper Miocene petroleum reservoir sands.

The present paper provides a first overview of all drilling activities in Greenland through history. Results and access to preserved material are important for future research and resource exploration. Almost all drilling projects are documented with details on companies/operators, targets, commodities, deposits, regions, year, depth ranges, numbers, and cumulative depths. For mineral exploration drilling, the key numbers are: similar to 1000 km, 278 projects, and similar to 7000 holes. For petroleum exploration drilling, the key numbers are 58 km, 10 projects, and 39 holes. For onshore scientific drilling, key numbers are 13.4 km, 24 projects, and 112 holes. For offshore scientific drilling, key numbers are 9.4 km, 6 projects, and 44 holes. Most mineral drilling was carried out by Canadian, followed by Danish/Greenlandic, Australian, and UK-based companies. The petroleum drilling was related to specific licensing rounds, now completely stopped. The scientific drilling has changed due to various strategies from authorities and other sponsors. The cores and results from previous drilling have a high value for society and should be preserved for research, exploration, and other future activities. Compared to other countries Greenland has a big task to develop and maintain a drill core database and make core material available for new users.

Over long stretches of the north-east coast of Qeqertarsuaq (Disko), the sediments in the Nuussuaq Basin and their relations to the volcanic rocks are concealed beneath numerous landslides. Two cores south of Qullissat drilled by Falconbridge Ltd in 1994, targeting a native-iron-bearing igneous body assumed to be a sill, present well-preserved sections through the hidden succession. We have dated the sediments in the cores palynologically. The lower part comprises 115 m of deltaic deposits, including coal seams, of the Cretaceous Atane Formation, Qilakitsoq Member (late Turonian to early Coniacian age), which has not been recorded on Disko before. The two cores and five short coastal cliff sections are mutually correlatable and correlate further to the coal seams earlier mined at Qullissat; the coals are hereby dated for the first time. The Cretaceous rocks are overlain by 15 m of marine deposits, mainly mudstones, of the Danian Eqalulik Formation, with a hiatus of c. 24 million years. The igneous body of native-iron-bearing basaltic andesite has a thick, red-oxidised, vesiculated and brecciated top zone and is interpreted as a subaerial lava flow belonging to the Asuk Member of the Vaigat Formation. The flow has run perhaps up to 20 km from the eruption site to the sea, where it ponded and attained a thickness of 138 m, the thickest lava flow in the West Greenland Basalt Group. The flow is overlain by 22 m of non-marine sandstones and mudstones of the Atanikerluk Formation. The core correlation indicates the existence of a fault with c. 90 m vertical displacement between the two drill sites. The structural relations of the various parts of the Atane Formation along the north-east coast of Disko necessitate the assumption of another hidden, prevolcanic fault south of Qullissaaqqat.

The organic matter content of marine sediments is often used to infer past changes in ocean conditions. However, the organic carbon pool preserved in coastal sediments is a complex mixture derived from different sources and may not reflect in situ processes. In this study, we combine taxonomic identification of reworked palynomorphs with pyrolysis organic geochemistry and reflected‐light organic petrographic microscopy to investigate the provenance, composition and preservation of organic matter in a marine sediment core retrieved from the NE Greenland shelf. Our study reveals continuous yet variable input of land‐derived organic carbon to the marine environment throughout the late Younger Dryas–Holocene, with the highest input of inert carbon in the late Younger Dryas. Although the sediments contain some recent marine palynomorphs, there is no other evidence of fresh marine organic carbon. In contrast, our results indicate that these shelf sediments represent a significant sink of recycled organic carbon. The results of pyrolysis geochemistry revealed that ~90% of the total organic carbon in the sediments is inert. The organic petrography analyses revealed that >70–84% of the organic carbon in the sediment core is terrigenous. Reworked dinoflagellate cysts showed a continuous provenance of Cretaceous land‐derived material, most likely from the nearby Clavering Island. Our study points to the importance of constraining the organic matter origin, composition and preservation in marine sediments to achieve more accurate palaeoenvironmental reconstructions based on organic proxies.

Two shallow cores drilled in northern Wollaston Forland, North-East Greenland, provide a combined section covering the upper Kimmeridgian (Upper Jurassic) – Barremian (Lower Cretaceous) and comprising the Bernbjerg, Lindemans Bugt, Palnatokes Bjerg and Stratumbjerg Formations. A new lithostratigraphic unit, the Storsletten Member, is defined within the Lindemans Bugt Formation. The black mudstone-dominated intervals are dated primarily by dinoflagellate cysts and ammonites, whereas the calcareous mudstones of the Palnatokes Bjerg Formation – sandwiched between the black mudstones – are dated by calcareous nannofossils. The stratigraphy demonstrates an almost complete succession in the Rødryggen-1 core, representing a deeper position in the basin, where the hiatus at the latest Jurassic rift climax predicted in previous models for the eastern Wollaston Forland Basin is absent. In contrast, the Brorson Halvø-1 core represents a position closer to a block crest where unconformities developed. In combination, the cores provide a key biostratigraphic reference section for the Jurassic–Cretaceous boundary interval in the Arctic.

The Ikorfat Fault zone in northern Nuussuaq, Central West Greenland, has preserved a hitherto unknown succession of Upper Cretaceous marine mudstones referred to the Itilli Formation, which have been removed by erosion on the footwall block and buried deeply below sea-level on the hanging-wall block. Outcrops in the fault zone provide new data on sedimentology, palynology, stable carbon isotopes and organic geochemistry in the lower part of the Itilli Formation. A new, detailed geological map of the study area is based on digital photogrammetry. Marine organic walled dinoflagellate cysts (dinocysts) demonstrate a late Cenomanian-Turonian age, coeval with the Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 (OAE2) and link the Nuussuaq Basin with the Baffin Bay and Sverdrup Basins. The Ikorfat Fault zone is part of the eastern boundary fault of the Nuussuaq Basin. Lower Campanian listric faults truncate the footwall block. Sub-sidence along steep normal faults continued during deposition of the volcanic Vaigat Formation of Danian to Selandian age. The downthrow of the hanging-wall block was around 2.5 km.(c) 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous interval represents a prolonged marine deoxygenation period particularly in the Boreal–Arctic basins, the controlling factors of which remain poorly understood. Two drill cores totalling >450 m cover the Kimmeridgian–Barremian succession in contrasting locations in an evolving half-graben system (basin centre and near the footwall crest) in Wollaston Forland, NE Greenland; they provide an exceptional c. 20 myr long window into palaeoenvironmental development and changes in redox conditions within a detailed tectonostratigraphic framework. Synthesis of a multidisciplinary dataset including sedimentology, inorganic geochemistry and previously published organic geochemistry indicates that, despite continuous black mudstone accumulation from the Kimmeridgian to the Ryazanian, seafloor anoxia was intermittent in the Kimmeridgian, whereas more sustained anoxia or euxinia occurred in the middle Volgian–early Ryazanian. Correlation to reported contemporaneous successions along the Greenland margin indicates that protracted rifting and generation of localized seafloor topography were among the major drivers both of seafloor deoxygenation and current funnelling and amplification during the Jurassic–Cretaceous transition. Consequently, distribution of seaway current activity and dysoxia, anoxia and euxinia varied spatially, allowing fully oxygenated and anoxic pockets to coexist. Supplementary material : A facies table, summary of geochemistry data, geochemistry raw data and a sedimentological log from Store Koldewey are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.6442539

Two drill cores covering the Upper Jurassic – Lower Cretaceous succession in Wollaston Forland, NE Greenland, offer an exceptional insight into mud-accumulation in an evolving distal fault block. Previous studies have revealed the presence of long-lasting black mudstone accumulation extending through the oxygen-restricted early rift and rift climax phases (Bernbjerg and Lindemans Bugt Formations). Here, we revisit the depositional evolution recorded in these cores to present a detailed description of the sedimentary succession extending into the late syn-rift settings (Palnatokes Bjerg and Stratumbjerg Formations). The results indicate that the Kimmeridgian – lower Volgian early rift-phase was characterized by suspension settling, laminae-scale event deposition in a tectonically-affected, prodeltaic offshore setting. The event-related depositional processes are expressed by starved wave-ripples, scour-and-fill structures, putative mud floccule ripples, and mud-dominated gravity-flow deposits. During the middle Volgian – Ryazanian rift climax phase, the depositional environment evolved into a narrow half-graben that was detached from the proximal depocentre flanking the coarse sediment fueled deltaic coastline. The correlative sedimentary facies in the detached half-graben are bioclastic and pyrite-rich black mudstones documenting suspension settling and gravity flow/mass wasting deposition in sub-storm wave-base slope and basin-floor environments. Black shale sedimentation ended abruptly in the late Ryazanian when the accumulation of condensed, bioturbated deep sea marls was initiated linked to broader oceanographic reorganization concomitant with waning rift activity in the west. Deposition of red bioclastic mudstones with a common gravity-flow component characterized the Hauterivian, potentially representing final draping of the submerged fault block crest. The top of the cored succession is demarcated by the appearance of dark grey bioturbated mudstones of Barremian age, reflecting the onset of regionally continuous deep-sea mud accumulation in thermally subsidizing basins. Although superficially monotonous, the mudstone-dominated succession reveals a highly dynamic depositional system that reflects shifting marine processes during almost a full rift cycle.

The Oxfordian–Ryazanian was a period of widespread deposition of marine organic-rich mudstones in basins formed during the early phases of the rifting that heralded the formation of the present-day North Atlantic. Occasionally, uninterrupted deposition prevailed for 20 million years or more. Today, mudstones of this time interval are found on the shelves bordering the North Atlantic and adjacent areas from Siberia to the Netherlands. Here, we report data on two fully cored boreholes from Wollaston Forland (North-East Greenland, approx. 74° N), which represent an uninterrupted succession from the upper Kimmeridgian to the Hauterivian. The boreholes record basin development at two different positions within an evolving halfgraben, located at the margin of the main rift, and thus partially detached from it. Although the overall depositional environment remained an oxygen-restricted deep-shelf setting, rifting-related changes can be followed through the succession. The Kimmeridgian was a period of eustatic highstand and records the incipient rifting with a transgressive trend straddling the transition to the lower Volgian by a gradual change from deposits with high levels of total organic carbon (TOC) and kerogen rich in allochthonous organic matter to deposits with lower TOC and a higher proportion of autochthonous organic matter. This is followed by a slight regressive trend with lower TOC and increased proportions of allochthonous organic matter until rifting culminated in the middle Volgian–Ryazanian, indicated by increasing autochthonous organic matter and higher TOC, which prevailed until basin ventilation occurred towards the end of the Ryazanian. The properties of the reactive kerogen fraction remained rather stable irrespective of TOC, underlining the effect of terrigenous matter input for TOC. These variations are also captured by biological markers and stable carbon isotopes. The deposits are very similar to equivalent successions elsewhere in the proto-North Atlantic region, albeit the proportion of terrigenous kerogen is greater.

The Wandel Sea Basin in North Greenland was part of the epicontinental Boreal Sea in Triassic time. The basin formed the western margin of the northernmost Atlantic elongated sea connecting southwards with basins along the conjugate Greenland-Norwegian margins. A multidisciplinary dataset including sedimentology, biostratigraphy, organic geochemistry and sedimentary provenance, allow to document its basin evolution. The Wandel Sea Basin was transgressed in the Dienerian with marine deposition prevailing until the Norian. Sediments were mainly sourced from the Greenlandic Caledonian basement and deposited on a 100 km wide shallow marine shelf during the Early Triassic. In Middle Triassic, oil-prone mudstones formed in oxygen-depleted deep shelf settings, including eastern Wandel Sea Basin. Detrital zircon U-Pb ages show that by Carnian times, the >1000 km wide, Uralian-sourced, deltaic shelf had prograded westward across the Barents Sea reaching the eastern north Greenland and de facto nearly closed the northernmost Atlantic Sea.

The stratigraphy and the geological evolution of the West Greenland margin from the Labrador Sea to Baffin Bay in both the onshore and offshore areas are described. The primary data sets include seismic reflection surveys, wells, and outcrops. In addition, seabed samples, seismic refraction and magnetic data, onshore and offshore maps, and stratigraphic compilations were used. The basins of the West Greenland continental margin are described in three regions from the south to the north: southern West Greenland basins, central West Greenland basins, and northern West Greenland basins. Each region includes a description of the stratigraphy and evolution from the Archean to the Quaternary, divided into six phases: pre-rift and early extension, early rift, subsidence and rifting, late rift, drift, and post-drift. Finally, the regions are correlated and described in a tectonostratigraphic context together with analogues from the Canadian conjugate margin.

The aim of this study is to elucidate the character of the earliest phases of Jurassic rifting in North-East Greenland. To achieve this, detailed sedimentological analysis and geological mapping were undertaken on the outcrops of central Kuhn Ø (74°53’55’’N,20°20’56”W). In this region the basement is overlain by the fluvial Bastians Dal Formation (Middle Jurassic) which is, in turn, overlain by the coal-bearing Muslingebjerg Formation. A maximum thickness of 140 m is calculated for the Bastians Dal Formation and mapping of stratal geometries demonstrates thinning to both the north and south, confirming that these deposits infill a palaeovalley. Predominantly south-westward palaeocurrent orientations are observed and likely reflect the orientation of the palaeovalley (NE–SW). The overlying Muslingebjerg Formation displays significant lateral variations in thickness as well as facies, thickening from a 5-m-thick coal seam in the north to 50 m in the south. Southern outcrops include two intervals of fine-grained sandstones displaying low-angle and trough cross-bedding some of which contain suggestions of tidal bundling. The arrangement of facies suggests that coal formation occurred in both fluvial- and shallow-marine (tidal?) environments. Coals are similar to those described elsewhere from the Muslingebjerg Formation and display subtle differences consistent with variable degrees of marine influence. Mapping demonstrates the presence of an NE–SW-oriented bounding fault in the south of the region into which the Muslingebjerg Formation thickens. This likely also controlled the orientation of the underlying NE–SW-aligned palaeovalley and is oblique to the proposed overall N–S orientation of faulting related to rifting through the Mid to Late Jurassic. Instead, these alignments resemble those that define pre-Jurassic phases of rifting and may therefore indicate a transitional phase of tectonism. Faulting on a similar alignment can be traced SW, cutting Lindeman Fjord and following the valleys east of the A. P. Olsen Land plateau.

Summary A play-based Yet-to-Find resource assessment of conventional hydrocarbons has been carried out for the West Greenland continental shelf that constitutes one of the last huge frontier areas of the World. The basin fill is divided into six main tectono-stratigraphic phases and eight play intervals. Source rock intervals include Ordovician, Albian, Cenomanian-Turonian, Campanian and Paleocene-Eocene. Reservoir rocks are present at virtually all stratigraphic levels. High-quality regional seals are well documented from all play intervals. Volume estimates for more than 152 structural leads have been integrated into the play analysis and the identified prospectivity has been calculated. The Yet-to-Find analysis is based on a feature (lead) density calculation approach for each of the identified play intervals calibrated with data from the most extensively explored areas (analogue areas). Based on these analogue areas the unidentified prospectivity has been calculated for the underexplored areas. Having calculated both identified and unidentified prospectivity, the roll-up of all play intervals provide the Total Mean Case Risked Recoverable MMBOE. The total Mean risked recoverable for AU1 is 5500 MMBOE, for AU2 9100 MMBOE and for AU3 2800 MMBOE. A final portfolio analysis shows which areas of the West Greenland continental margin are the most prospective for future exploration.

Myanmar has a long history of petroleum production, but little information has so far been published pertaining to the detailed composition of the country's oils. The present paper reports the results of the analysis of a total of 28 Cenozoic oil samples collected from producing fields/wells or natural seepages in the onshore Salin and Chindwin Basins of the Central Myanmar Depression and from Ramree Island in the Rakhine Coastal Belt. In addition, a set of 68 mudstones and coals from four Oligocene – Paleocene formations were collected along the western margin of the Central Myanmar Depression and were analysed for petroleum generation potential. Data on five oil samples from the Assam Province of India, situated to the north of the Central Myanmar Depression, were also included in the study for comparison purposes.Previous studies have suggested that the Eocene succession in the Central Myanmar Depression includes organic‐rich source rocks. However, none of the analysed rock samples show any potential for the generation of appreciable amounts of liquid petroleum components. The samples were collected at the basin margin and only cover a small fraction of the succession, and they are probably not therefore representative of the actual source rocks present in deeply buried kitchen areas in the Central Myanmar Depression.The oils from the Central Myanmar Depression appear to have been generated from the same overall source type, which is dominated by terrigenous, higher land‐plant –derived kerogen. Several different parameters consistently show clear north–south trends in the Salin Basin with respect to both thermal maturity and source facies. Oils from the Chindwin Basin in the north of the depression can be distinguished from those of the Salin Basin further south using subtle variations in biomarkers. The oils collected from Ramree Island represent a different basin and are easily distinguished in that they are generated from a predominantly marine source rock, albeit one with a significant terrigenous input. However, one sample from Ramree Island was generated from a predominantly terrigenous source, which may suggest the existence of two viable petroleum systems in the Rakhine Coastal Belt or of marked facies variations within the source succession.Oils from the Central Myanmar Depression and the Assam Province of India are remarkably similar, thus suggesting generation from highly similar source rock types, presumably of Eocene age. This could be a result of these two areas being physically connected during the Eocene as suggested by modern plate reconstructions.

. The Early Jurassic Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event (T-OAE) with its associated carbon-isotope excursion (CIE) was possibly one of the most pronounced periods of widespread oxygen deficiency in the Mesozoic ocean. The event has been extensively studied in order to understand the processes triggering the environmental perturbations and the extreme oxygen depletion in many marine basins. However, comparatively little focus has been placed on the end of the positive CIE and the stratigraphic coherent end of anoxic-euxinic conditions. In the present study, we constrain the stratigraphic extent of anoxic-euxinic conditions and define the termination of the positive CIE in the Swabo-Franconian Basin covering the Lower Toarcian strata using carbon-isotope ratios, organic matter pyrolysis and redox-sensitive element concentrations of outcrop samples from the Aubach section. Bulk organic carbon-isotope values, corrected for changes in type of organic matter using the Hydrogen Index (HI), suggest that the amplitude of the negative CIE in organic matter is as little as 3.3–3.5 ‰, in contrast to 4.5 ‰ change in δ 13 C carb in the same section. Enrichment in redox-sensitive proxies (V/Al and DOP-T) and %TOC suggest that environmental perturbations associated with the T-OAE continued until the upper falciferum Zone in the Aubach section. This indicates that anoxic–euxinic conditions terminated in the same stratigraphic interval in which δ 13 C values return to steady, light values at ~–28 ‰ (termination of positive CIE). This synchronism in the return to normal marine conditions is also observed in the southern Paris Basin, but not in the Cleveland Basin.

The Miocene climate was dynamic, oscillating between major glaciation events and greenhouse conditions (the so-called Miocene Climatic Optimum or MCO). However, forcing factors responsible for climatic transitions from one state to another are not fully understood, partly because palaeoclimatological records from northern mid to high latitudes are scarce. To better resolve climatic changes of the Miocene epoch in the northern middle latitudes we studied a unique, nearly complete sedimentary record (Sdr. Vium borehole) spanning the upper Aquitanian to the Tortonian of the North Sea Basin. Newly obtained sea surface temperatures (SSTs) from our Miocene core revealed that the North Sea Basin was up to 20°C warmer than today, reaching the temperature maximum during the worldwide MCO (Herbert et al. 2020). Our high-resolution δ13C, TOC and C/N records, as well as elemental detrital ratios (Si/Al, Zr/Rb, Zr/Al) derived from XRF reveal important changes in the source of organic matter and detrital coarse fraction of the sediment. During the Miocene the location of the Sdr. Vium borehole was situated in a proximal setting, with water depths varying between 0 and ~200 m, partly due to advancing and retreating delta lobes and partly due to relative sea level changes. We observe that the depositional environment had a large impact on our record. By far the most important of these changes is a condensed interval associated with phosphatization, pyritization, and glauconite, associated with a major shift from a dark brown, organic-rich, bioturbated silty clay with thin sand lenses (the Hodde Formation) towards a green and brown clay with high concentrations of green glaucony pellets of fine sand grade (the Ørnhøj Formation). This shift is related to the subsidence of the North Sea Basin and marks the onset of a sediment-starvation in the basin.

Evaluation of the regional geotectonic impact of the High Arctic Large Igneous Province (HALIP) in the present‐day northern Atlantic region has been hindered by poor correlation between the Svalbard–Barents Shelf region and eastern North Greenland. New sedimentological and biostratigraphic data from Peary Land and Kronprins Christian Land (Kilen), North Greenland reveal that the Lower Cretaceous palaeogeographic and sequence stratigraphic development of this area is closely comparable to that of Svalbard. The succession records Hauterivian – early Barremian regional uplift and emergence followed by fluvial sedimentation and subsequent transgression in the late Barremian – early Aptian. Recognition of this tectonically forced regression in North Greenland provides a link to a coeval well‐known tectonostratigraphic event in the Svalbard region, and hence to regional tectono‐magmatic uplift heralding the HALIP and the initiation of the Amerasia Basin.

Oligocene deep syn-rift lakes in the Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam, represent exceptional paleoenvironmental archives, but their use for unravelling the regional paleoclimatic development has been hindered by poor dating. Here we present a high-resolution carbon isotope record of wood particles (?13Cwood) and bulk organic matter (?13Corg) from a 500 m thick cored Oligocene sedimentary succession representing a deep syn-rift lake. The obtained data allows for estimation of the age of the succession and gives a rare insight into the in-lake fractionation processes. Correlation of the carbon isotopic signature of ?13Cwood with the global marine record narrows the duration of the deposition of the succession to 1.2 Ma (25.7?26.9 Ma), thus significantly improving any previous age estimates for the core. The comparison of the ?13Cwood with ?13Corg pinpoints parts of the ?13Corg signal influenced by in-lake fractionation processes and indicates two dominant factors controlling them. The lake productivity induced fractionation is seen as more positive ?13C values than expected from wood ?13C. This prevailed during more oxygenated periods, while organic matter degradation related processes dominated the fractionation during the more anoxic periods. The oxygenation of the lake was mostly dependent on changes in tectonic setting that resulted in some variations in lake depth and was strengthened by climatic influence.

A new inventory on onshore petroleum seeps and stains in Greenland has been released by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland as a web-based GIS model on the Greenland Mineral Resources Portal: Petroleum Seeps and Stains in Greenland. Knowledge on oil and gas seeps, oil stains and solid bitumen occurrences provides key information on mineral and petroleum systems, especially in frontier basins. As the understanding of recent and previous migrations of fluids and gases is important for both mineral and petroleum explorations in Greenland, this new inventory has been developed to facilitate exploration and new activities. The classification includes the following types of occurrences: (1) oil seeps, (2) gas seeps, (3) mud diapirs, pingos and gas-rich springs, (4) oil stains in volcanics, carbonates and sandstones, (5) solid macroscopic bitumen and (6) fluid inclusions and other evidence of micro-seepage. The inventory comprises detailed information on localities, coordinates and sample numbers. It also includes descriptions of features and geology, references to data, reports and publications. All information is summarised in either a mineral or petroleum systems context. Petroleum seeps and stains have been reported from most Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic basins in Greenland where they add important information on petroleum systems, especially distribution and facies variation of source rocks, petroleum generation and later migration, accumulation, remigration, uplift and degradation. The inventory is designed to be updated with additional localities and descriptions and new organic geochemical data. This paper provides a general overview of classification, nomenclature, organisation and content of the inventory. We introduce the regional distribution of petroleum seeps and stains in Greenland and general interpretations in the context of mineral and petroleum systems.

The paleoenvironmental and paleogeographic development of the Norwegian–Greenland seaway remains poorly understood, despite its importance for the oceanographic and climatic conditions of the Paleocene–Eocene greenhouse world. Here we present analyses of the sedimentological and paleontological characteristics of Paleocene–Eocene deposits (between 63 and 47 million years old) in northeast Greenland, and investigate key unconformities and volcanic facies observed through seismic reflection imaging in offshore basins. We identify Paleocene–Eocene uplift that culminated in widespread regression, volcanism, and subaerial exposure during the Ypresian. We reconstruct the paleogeography of the northeast Atlantic–Arctic region and propose that this uplift led to fragmentation of the Norwegian–Greenland seaway during this period. We suggest that the seaway became severely restricted between about 56 and 53 million years ago, effectively isolating the Arctic from the Atlantic ocean during the Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum and the early Eocene.