Modeling of Sedimentary Systems

Basin modeling is describing how sediments in a basin are being compacted and causing the brine pressure to build-up in geologic time. It also describes the thermal evolution of a basin stemming from the heat flow coming into the basin at the basement, radiogenic heat production within the basin, and the paleo surface temperature at the sedimentation surface. The thermal history is used to model the degradation of organic material, algal, liptinic, and humic kerogen, and the cracking of heavy HC compounds into light HC compounds.

Hermanrud (1993) gives a historical overview of basin modeling, and Barker (1996) describes thermal modeling of petroleum generation.