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Controls on structural styles, basin development and petroleum prospectivity in the Midland Valley of Scotland

Integration of seismic interpretation from offshore waters with field and subsurface data from neighbouring onshore areas provides new insights into the petroleum system of the Midland Valley. Burial of Lower Carboniferous oil-shale source rocks can now be shown to have been the primary driver in the maturation and up-dip migration of crude oil into age-equivalent clastic reservoirs located in the adjacent anticlines, rather than generation through direct contact with igneous intrusions. The recognition of an active oil-kitchen in the core of the Midlothian–Leven Syncline has important consequences for shale-gas and shale-oil exploration from whence unconventional resources may be extracted.