Hydrocarbon-bearing Upper Jurassic sandstone reservoirs at depths of more than 5000 m may form a future exploration target in the Danish Central Graben (Fig. 1). The Upper Jurassic sandstone play in the Danish sector has historically been less successful than in the neighbouring Norwegian and British sectors of the North Sea. This is mainly due to poor reservoir quality of the sandstones. However, the discovery in 2001 of an oil accumulation at a depth of more than 5000 m in the Svane-1 well has triggered renewed interest in the Upper Jurassic High Temperature – High Pressure (HTHP) sandstone play in Danish waters. The Jurassic plays comprise sandstone reservoirs deposited in a variety of environments, ranging from fluvial to deep marine.

Deposition of the Upper Cretaceous-Danian Chalk Group in the Salt Dome Province of the southern Danish Central Graben took place during a tectonic period dominated by post-rift subsidence, halokinesis and structural inversion. This resulted in highly variable chalk distribution with >1300 m of chalk located in synclines and <200 m preserved on inversion highs and salt structures. The area is mature with respect to exploration with most of the chalk fields located in structural traps discovered in the 1970s. However, the Halfdan discovery in 1999 illustrates the existence of off-structural traps, leading to renewed exploration interest. To locate additional off-structural traps, a detailed geological model is necessary for prediction of chalk intervals with reservoir potential. To unravel basin development, we combine 3D seismic interpretation, well log correlation and 2D seismic inversion to estimate acoustic impedance along selected profiles. The 2D acoustic impedance profiles are converted to total porosity and used to identify areas with potential untargeted reservoirs. A prominent high-amplitude reflection is interpreted as a regional unconformity separating two distinctly different chalk deposition patterns. Nannofossil biostratigraphy suggests a latest Campanian to early Maastrichtian age for the unconformity. It corresponds to an increase in acoustic impedance and decrease in porosity in wells. The Tor Formation contains porous intervals while the underlying Hod Formation contains less porous chalk. The Hod Formation has a maximum porosity of <20% based on well log and inversion data. In contrast, inversion data indicate that the Tor Formation comprises reservoir-grade porosity at several locations on downflank structures. In several areas, the inversion-based maximum porosity is predicted to be higher than expected, compared with porosity/depth trends derived from well data. Therefore, the spatial porosity variation in chalk is complex and controlled by factors other than burial depth.

More than 80% of the present-day oil and gas production in the Danish part of the North Sea is extracted from fields with chalk reservoirs of late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) and early Paleocene (Danian) ages (Fig. 1). Seismic reflection and in version data play a fundamental role in mapping and characterisation of intra-chalk structures and reservoir properties of the Chalk Group in the North Sea. The aim of seismic inversion is to transform seismic reflection data into quantitative rock properties such as acoustic impedance (AI) that provides information on reservoir properties enabling identification of porosity anomalies that may constitute potential reservoir compartments. Petrophysical analyses of well log data have shown a relationship between AI and porosity. Hence, AI variations can be transformed into porosity variations and used to support detailed interpretations of porous chalk units of possible reservoir quality. This paper presents an example of how the chalk team at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) integrates geological, geophysical and petrophysical information, such as core data, well log data, seismic 3-D reflection and AI data, when assessing the hydrocarbon prospectivity of chalk fields.

Seismic reflection data from the Danish North Sea are interpreted to map the structure of the Palaeozoic basement in the area of the MONA LISA deep seismic lines. Based on a characteristic near-basement reflection, the upper crystalline crust of Baltica of offshore Denmark is traced to the south into the southern Horn-Graben, and to the west to the eastern shoulder of the Central Graben. A two-way-traveltime map of the near-basement horizon and several interpreted seismic sections reveal that three main tectonic events influenced the topography of the basement: (1) a compressional event which could be Caledonian in age; (2) a Palaeozoic extensional event postdating the compressional deformation and expressed in a system of WSW-ESE to W-E striking Palaeozoic half-grabens; and (3) the Permo-Triassic rifting that led to the formation of NNW-SSE to NNE-SSW trending Mesozoic faults of the Horn Graben and the Central Graben which are oriented sub-perpendicular to the Palaeozoic system. Compressive deformation is localized in a narrow zone around and south of the hitherto interpreted Caledonian Deformation Front and foreland deformation on Baltica is suggested as its origin. The seismic image of the Palaeozoic halfgrabens indicates that the East North Sea High is an inverted Palaeozoic rift which subsequently was cut by younger Late Palaeozoic to Mesozoic rifts of the Horn and Central Grabens. The timing of the first extensional phase remains speculative, but it predates the Rotliegend unconformity. Some of the older Palaeozoic normal faults may have been reactivated as transfer zones between the different graben segments during the Permo-Mesozoic extension.

During the evolution of continents, compressive tectonic phases can leave certain tectonic patterns in the lithosphere to be observed by reflection seismology. Also, in the area of the trans-European suture zone (TESZ) in the Baltic Sea, several relatively short, but occasionally strong, compressive phases have left their marks in the lithosphere in form of characteristic fault and thrust zones in the rigid parts of crust and mantle, especially clear and well investigated in some sediment troughs. At depth, interwedging processes seem to be generated by colliding tectonic units with different rheology, creating bi-vergent fault structures, possibly—but not necessarily—initiated by a previous subduction of intervening oceanic lithosphere. Near the surface, reactivation and inversion of previous faults are very selective. Transpressional processes and the reduced friction inside the faults are suggested to play a major role. It is assumed that the transfer of plate boundary stressed over long distances is performed mainly through the thick and rigid mantle lid, not through the thin, rigid, and heterogeneous upper crust. This assumption involves mechanisms of a vertical transfer of stresses from the mantle into the inversion area, and some signs of such a process are seen around the Tornquist Zone (TZ). Several examples of compressive transfer of stresses are shown.

Tomographic travel time inversion of seismic compressional (P) and shear (S) wave data from the long-range deep seismic sounding experiment Fennoscandian Long Range (FENNOLORA) reveals the velocity structure of the crust and upper mantle in the Baltic Shield. Pronounced scattering and delay in travel times of seismic P- and S-wave phases together with strong attenuation of S-wave phases beyond ca. 800-km offset are attributed to a low-velocity zone (LVZ) below the 8° discontinuity at a depth of ca. 100 km. Travel time inversion of P- and S-wave first arrivals shows that the 8° discontinuity represents the top of a zone with negative or very small vertical velocity gradients and a Vp/Vs ratio of 1.74–1.77. We observe clear, linear refracted P-wave phases (i.e. the Lehmann refraction) at offsets beyond 1100–1300 km, which suggest that the base of the low-velocity zone is at ca. 150-km depth in the Baltic Shield. No refracted S-wave phases are observed beyond 1200-km offset, which we attribute to strong S-attenuation within the zone below the 8° discontinuity. These features are interpreted by the presence of small amounts of partial melts, almost molten rocks or possibly free fluids, in the 100–150-km depth interval. Local variations in the Vp/Vs ratio of the crust and uppermost mantle correlate with Proterozoic terranes, which collided and were amalgamated during the Precambrian plate tectonic events that led to the assemblage of the Baltic Shield.

The unexposed suture between Baltica and Eastern Avalonia is imaged by coincident normal-incidence reflection and wide-angle reflection/refraction seismic data of the MONA LISA project. We present new results of the upper lithospheric, seismic structure from the N–S-striking profile 2 across the Caledonian Deformation Front, which represents the crustal collision suture between Baltica and Eastern Avalonia that formed after closure of the Tornquist Sea during the Caledonian orogeny in Late Ordovician times. Three different crustal types are identified with great similarities to the nearby profile 1: (1) a three-layered crust typical of shields to the north; (2) a transitional crust (suture zone) in the central part; and (3) a two-layered crust of Caledonian origin to the south characterized by very low velocities throughout the crust. The crustal thickness varies from 38–35km under the northern margin of the Ringkøbing-Fyn High (Baltica crust) to 28–27km beneath the North German Basin in the Caledonian crust to the south. The suture zone is imaged by S-dipping crustal reflections from 1.9 to 10.6s two-way travel time (twt) over a horizontal distance of ∼70km within the transitional crust. The reflection suture zone terminates in a ∼60km wide reflective lens with velocities of 6.6–6.8km/s in the lowermost crust. The reflective lens may be interpreted as a remnant of oceanic or island-arc crust that was accreted to the leading edge of Baltica during closure of the Tornquist Sea. Alternatively, the reflective lens may represent an indentor of Baltica crust into the Avalonian terrane. The change in lower crustal reflectivity and the abrupt transition from a three- to a two-layered crust further south suggest that the Trans-European Fault and the Elbe Lineament continue into the North Sea. The upper mantle reflectivity is dominated by bands of strong-amplitude, S-dipping reflections from 13.5 to 21.8s twt, and a weaker band of N-dipping reflections from 12 to 16s twt. Reversed wide-angle refractions and reflections indicate the presence of a S-dipping high-velocity layer (8.65–8.8km/s) in the uppermost mantle. The sub-Moho high-velocity layer partially coincides with the strong S-dipping normal-incidence mantle reflections. We propose that the S-dipping mantle structure may represent a late-Caledonian or Late Carboniferous to Early Permian mantle shear zone.

The Tornquist and Iapetus Suture Zones result from amalgamation of three plates (Laurentia, Baltica and Eastern Avalonia) during the Early Paleozoic Caledonian orogeny (∼440 Ma). We present a comparison of the velocity structure of the contrasting Proterozoic and Paleozoic lithosphere across the margins of Eastern Avalonia based on two deep seismic experiments, MONA LISA and VARNET in the SE North Sea and SW Ireland, respectively. Both velocity models show three different crustal types: (a) a high-velocity, three-layered shield type Proterozoic crust (in Baltica and Laurentia) to the north; (b) a transitional crust in the central part across the suture zones; and (c) Eastern Avalonian crust to the south. However, the sub-Moho velocities are ∼7.8 km/s under the ∼34-km-thick Baltica crust and ∼8.2 km/s under the 26-km-thick Eastern Avalonian crust on the MONA LISA-1 profile, in contrast to ∼7.8 km/s under the ∼31-km-thick Eastern Avalonian crust and ∼8.1 km/s under the ∼33 km thick Laurentian crust on the VARNET profile. These differences in the sub-Moho velocity structure are interpreted to be related to a change in subduction polarity between the Tornquist Sea and the Iapetus Ocean or in the direction of shearing in the mantle during collision tectonics.

Seismic reflection data from the Horn Graben area in the southeastern part of the North Sea, off-shore Denmark, have been interpreted to illustrate the upper crustal structures around the MONA LISA deep seismic lines. The study area comprises the southern Horn Graben area and the eastern part of East North Sea High, where the Caledonian collision suture between Baltica and Eastern Avalonia bends such that the strike direction changes from ESE in the south to NNW in the north. Integrated interpretation of normal-incidence reflection data and wide-angle refraction data reveals substantial occurrences of lower and upper Palaeozoic strata in the area, thickest below the Horn Graben. This may indicate that Horn Graben developed as a graben structure during late Palaeozoic in the former Caledonian foredeep. On the northern and eastern parts of the MONA LISA deep seismic reflection lines 1 and 3, the main E- dipping boundary fault of the southern Horn Graben segment appears to be listric at depth with a sub-horizon-tal detachment at the top of the reflective lower crust. We have mapped the lateral extent of the lower Permian, volcanic Rotliegend reflector in the study area on the basis of seismic lines from the RTD-81 survey. Dipping reflections observed in the sedimentary strata below the Rotliegend reflector are interpreted as Cal-edonian structures generated by folding and deformation in Lower Palaeozoic Baltica shelf sediments in the Caledonian foreland basin. A sequence of S- and W-dipping reflections above 4 s twt are interpreted as preserved Caledonian thrusts in the upper crustal frontal part of the SW-dipping Caledonian Deformation Front.

Compilation of seismic transects across the central and northern California Coast Ranges provides evidence for the widespread tectonic emplacement beneath the margin of a slab of partially subducted oceanic lithosphere. The oceanic crust of this lithosphere can be traced landward from the former convergent margin (fossil trench), beneath the Coast Ranges, to at least as far east as the Coast Range/Great Valley boundary. Comparison of measured shear and compressional wave velocities in the middle crust beneath the Hayward fault with laboratory measurements suggests that the middle crust is a diabase (oceanic dust). Both of these observations are consistent with recent models of the high heat flow and age progression of Neogene volcanism along the Coast Ranges based on tectonic emplacement (stalling) of young, hot oceanic lithosphere beneath the margin, but appear to contradict the major predictions of the slab-gap or asthenospheric-window model. Finally, the Neogene volcanism and major strike-slip faults in the Coast Ranges occur within the thickest regions (>14 km thick) of the forearc, suggesting that the locations of Cenozoic volcanism and faulting along the margin are structurally controlled by the forearc thickness rather than being determined by the location of a broad slab gap.

Seismic data from the MONA LISA (Marine and Onshore North Sea Acquisition for Lithospheric Seismic Analysis) project in the southeastern North Sea image the Caledonian Deformation Front (CDF), which is the collisional suture between Baltica to the north and east and Avalonia to the south and west. The NS-trending MONA LISA normal-incidence reflection profile 1 was recorded to 26 s twt. Coincident wide-angle data were acquired on nine ocean bottom hydrophones and several onshore mobile seismographs along and off the profile. The model of compressional seismic velocity shows three different crustal types: (a) a typical three-layered shield-type crust below the Ringkøbing Fyn High to the north: (b) a highly complex transitional crust in the central part; and (c) a two-layered crust of Caledonian origin to the south. Sharp and strong normal-incidence and wide-angle reflections from Moho were recorded south of the Caledonian Deformation Front in contrast to less distinct reflections further north. S-dipping crustal reflections from 4 to 11 s twt over ∼70 km horizontal distance terminate at Moho and coincide with a change in the seismic velocity structure. This indicates northward obduction of Avalonian crust. Non-migrated normal-incidence seismic sections show crossing weak N-dipping and stronger S-dipping reflections to 20 s twt from the uppermost mantle. We propose a tectonic model where the closure of the Tornquist Sea took place along a N-dipping subduction zone which was later overprinted by a late-or post-Caledonian S-dipping shear zone. Sub-Moho velocities are 7.8–7.9 km/s under 34–35-km-thick Baltica crust and 8.1–8.3 km/s under 25–26-km-thick Caledonian crust. The sub-horizontal Moho across the Caledonian collision zone implies late- or post-Caledonian re-equilibration of the seismological Moho. We interpret the low-velocity upper mantle (7.8–8.1 km/s) to the north as former Baltica lower crust in eclogite facies after pressure-induced metamorphism as a result of lithospheric flexure during the Caledonian orogeny. These rocks today appear as upper mantle that was uplifted to their present position during the Middle Devonian collapse of the North German-Polish Caledonides.

The MONA LISA collaborative project has collected 1112 km of seismic normal-incidence reflection data (recorded to 26 s) and wide-angle data from 26 onshore and 2 offshore locations along 4 profiles in the southeastern North Sea. The seismic data clearly image structures in the crust and uppermost mantle that may be related to Caledonian collision and Late Palaeozoic to Mesozoic rifting and basin formation. For the first time, dipping and subhorizontal reflections from the mantle have been observed to 24 s twt in seismic normal-incidence reflection sections. Strong sub-horizontal reflections are observed on two perpendicular profiles at c. 21 s twt, which is near the base of the lithosphere. These deep reflections are sharper than expected from a thermal-theological transition suggesting that they are generated at lithological or tectonic interfaces. The Moho is reflective along all four profiles. Particularly strong and sharp normal-incidence and wide-angle reflections were recorded from the Moho south of the Caledonian Deformation Front. The normal-incidence reflection sections show unusually low intra-crustal reflectivity. Lower crustal, subhorizontal reflectivity is only observed west of the Central Graben and in a short profile segment at the base of the interpreted Caledonian Deformation Front. The crustal suture between Avalonia and Baltica is interpreted to be south- to west-dipping. SSW- and N-dipping reflections to 20 s twt are observed from the uppermost mantle. Two models of Tornquist Sea subduction may explain these events: either southward subduction and later extensional reactivation or northward subduction with later extension along a SSW-dipping shear zone. The crust is c. 5 km thinner below the Central Graben than below the surrounding parts of the Mid North Sea-Ringkobing-Fyn High. The lower crust is reflective on the western flank of the Central Graben. East-dipping reflections from the lower crust and the upper mantle to the east of the graben may indicate a component of simple shear in the evolution of the rift structure.

Deep seismic reflection profiles west of Denmark across the suture between Baltica and Eastern Avalonia reveal weak, southward-dipping reflectors within the crystalline basement. These reflectors are interpreted as thrusts resulting from emplacement of Eastern Avalonia onto the southern edge of Baltica. North of these reflectors are the remains of a dissected Silurian foredeep. The presence of this foredeep and the 440 Ma age of metamorphism in rocks recovered from boreholes into Eastern Avalonian rocks suggest that closure of the Tornquist sea occurred in the Late Ordovician, which is consistent with paleobiogeographic data and paleomagnetic apparent polar wander paths for Eastern Avalonia and Baltica. The similarity between these reflection data and the BABEL AC profile permits correlation of reflectors beneath Denmark into the southern North Sea.

A hitherto unknown terrane and its bounding sutures have been revealed by a combined study of normal-incidence and wide-angle seismic data along the BABEL profile in the Baltic Sea. This Intermediate Terrane is situated between a Northern Terrane of Svecofennian age and a Southwestern Terrane of Gothian age. It is delimited upwards by two low-angle and oppositely dipping sutures and occupies mainly middle and lower crustal levels with a width of ∼ 300 km at Moho level. The ∼ 1.86 Ga suture against the Northern Terrane is imaged by a prominent almost continuous NE-dipping crustal reflection from 3.5 to 14 s twt over 175 km. Where it downlaps on the Moho, sub-Moho velocities change from 8.2 to 7.8 km/s (±0.2) over less than 25 km. A relatively strong, NE-dipping normal-incidence and wide-angle reflection at 19–23 s twt indicates that the suture extends into the upper mantle. The pervasive NE-dipping reflection fabric of the Intermediate Terrane is interpreted as shear zones that developed during collision and possibly were reactivated by later events. High Poisson's ratios suggest a mafic composition or high fluid content. The ∼ 1.86 Ga collision was probably succeeded by continental break-up and removal of an unknown continent, except for the Intermediate Terrane. Subsequent formation of an east-dipping subduction zone further to the west led to the emplacement of 1.81-1.77-Ga-old granitoids in the southern part of the Transscandinavian Igneous Belt. The ∼ 1.65-1.60 Ga suture against the Southwestern Terrane is defined by a semi-continuous band of strong SW-dipping reflections between 3 and 8 s twt over 65 km, which are interpreted as a low-angle thrust zone along which Gothian crust overrode the Intermediate Terrane. The identification of three individual seismic terranes in the southeastern part of the Baltic Shield provides new evidence for Palaeoproterozoic plate tectonic processes.