HOLMES, ALLEN W., JR., Consultant, Wilton, CT

Although western Newfoundland has been long recognized to have the potential to become a major oil producing province, it was not until a recent oil discovery, reportedly from Lower Paleozoic reservoirs, by the Hunt Oil/Pan Canadian, Port au Port No. 1, that this potential may finally be realized. Newfoundland is part of the northern extension of the Appalachian orogenic belt. Paleozoic tectonic events generally parallel those of the southern Appalachians with the exception of a series of extensional fault blocks formed in late Devonian and early Carboniferous that resulted in a pattern of linear asymmetrical grabens. Newfoundland contains a well-exposed portion of the Appalachian Caledonian fold belt, but only the western part of the province, the Humber Zone, is considered to have hydrocarbon potential. The Humber Zone is approximately 11,500 square miles in area and consists of distinct lithologic associations which in general include a Precambrian crystalline basement; a Lower Paleozoic succession of shelf carbonates; a thrust complex of Cambro-Ordovician deep water sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks; and a thick sequence of Carboniferous strata in two separate grabens: the Deer Lake Basin and the Bay St. George Subbasin. Sediments in the Carboniferous grabens range between continental and marine facies including evaporite deposits, whose later movement created diaparic and other salt-related structures. Recent seismic surveys suggest the Carboniferous section may exceed 15,000 feet in thickness and offer favorable targets for exploration.

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