Petroleum Perspective of the NW-Kenya Basins

This research-related work gives a synoptic perspective of subsurface stratigraphy of northwestern Kenya Tertiary Rift Basins in terms of petroleum prospectivity. The basins have evolved through extension tectonics that brought out continental rifting as a part of the major Gondwanaland breakup in the Late Paleozoic time and continued in the Mesozoic and Tertiary. This movement was accompanied by a stupendous outpouring of the lava flows. The gravity anomaly maps and seismic profiles were most useful for the interpretations incorporated in the paper which revealed the presence of several horsts and grabens structural systems. It was also revealed that the basins attracted potential petroliferous sedimentary piles (~2000 6000 m thick) which were deposited on basement rocks of Precambrian age and later got covered by basaltic flows of mainly Miocene age. The drill core lithologs were available pertaining to wells: LT-1 and LT-2 in the Lokichar and North Kerio-Turkana basin systems (Tertiary) and C1 C2 and C3 in the Chalbi basin (Cretaceous). The northwestern Lotikipi basin (Cretaceous?) was drilled by CEPSA but the few wells did not yield promising petroleum targets/associations.