INTRODUCTION

The availability of literature on Trinidad petroleum geology naturally parallels the evolution of the oil industry in Trinidad. The earliest publication on the general geology of Trinidad was in 1860 by G.P. Wall and J.G. Sawkins, two geologists from the British Government School of Mines in London, and was entitled "Report on the Geology of Trinidad". It is interesting that the Director General of the School of Mines commented in his introductory note to this report: "The discovery of coal, which, though of Tertiary age, if of value for steam and other purposes, may suffice to convince the colonists of the utility of such a survey".

However, it was petroleum, and not coal, that became Trinidad's greatest natural resource. Drilling for oil was in progress for more than 30 years before E.H. Cunningham-Craig, a British Government geologist, came to Trinidad in 1904 to map Trinidad geology with the primary objective of locating oil fields. To him is credited the earliest paper on Trinidad petroleum geology,

·General report on the Southern Anticline of the Oilfields, published in 1905. Since then, the research into the exploration and development of the oil fields of Trinidad has been fairly well documented, particularly by the early generation of petroleum geologists working in Trinidad prior to 1960, almost all of whom were foreigners.

The advent of local geologists in the oil industry during the 1960s heralded the beginning of a significant local contribution to the petroleum bibliography of Trinidad, which has grown steadily since. Papers by local geologists now account for 37 of the 112 petroleum geology papers published on Trinidad.
Twenty of these, and 35 of all papers, have been published in the Proceedings of three Geological Conferences which were held in Port of Spain, viz: the 4th Caribbean Geological Conference in 1965 (10 papers), -the 4th Latin American Geological Conference in 1979 (15) and the 1st Geological Conference of the Geological Society of Trinidad and Tobago in 1985 (10). This underscores the significance of these conferences as a forum for our local geologists to present and publish aspects of their work in the oil industry.


The most prolific author on Trinidad petroleum geology is Hans G. Kugler, with 17 publications. The most researched and written aspect of the petroleum geology of Trinidad is mud volcanoes/mud islands, with 15 published papers concerning this phenomenon. Eighteen papers on Trinidad petroleum geology have been published by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, in its monthly bulletins or in its Memoirs. In what is still primarily a male-dominated environment, only 2 petroleum papers have been authored/co-authored by female geologists.


This compilation represents a first attempt at listing all publications on the petroleum geology of Trinidad. The material listed is what has been published and can be accessed, and therefore excludes the large number of internal company reports which are not generally accessible to non-company personnel Also excluded are the numerous publications on Trinidad palaeontology which, although relevant to the petroleum geology of Trinidad, probably merit compilation as a separate Palaeontology Bibliography.

Brami, T., Pirmez, C., Archie, C., Heeralai, S., and Holman, K., 2000, Late Pleistocene deep-water stratigraphy and depositional processes, offshore Trinidad and Tobago: Paper presented at GCSSEPM 20th Annual Conference held in Houston, Texas, U.S.A., December 3-6, 2000 (article and color illustrations available on CD-ROM made available to meeting participants and the public titled Deep Water Reservoirs of the World, P. Weimer, R.M. Slatt, J. Coleman, N.C. Rosen, H. Nelson, A.H. Bouma, M.J. Styzen and D.T. Lawrence (eds.).

Day, R., Burch, T., Lehmann, C., and Hoffman, K., 2000, Data integration for velocity modeling and depth conversion, Trinidad and Tobago: in 32nd Annual Offshore Technology Conference 2000 Proceedings, Vol. 1:Geology, earth sciences and environmental factors, p. 41-43.

Farmer, C., Shaw, E.R. and Burch, T.K., in press, The Red Mango Area - discovery and delineation of a 3 TCF gas field, Columbus Basin, offshore Trinidad (abs.): AAPG Annual Meeting 2001, Program with Abstracts, Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

Gibson, R.G., and Bentham, P.A., 2000, Use of fault-seal analysis in understanding petroleum migration in a complexly faulted anticlinal trap, Columbus basin, offshore Trinidad: Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, GSTT/SPE Annual Meeting Abstracts with Program, p. 87.

Heppard, P. D., H. S. Cander, and E. B. Eggertson, 1998, Abnormal pressure and the occurrence of hydrocarbons in offshore eastern Trinidad, West Indies, in B. E. Law, G. F. Ulmishek, and V. I. Slavin, eds., Abnormal pressures in hydrocarbon environments: AAPG Memoir 70, p. 215-246.

Patterson, M.B., Blom, F., Griffith, C.M., Tepper, B.J. and Truempy, D., in press, Sweet music in the Columbus Basin: From Mozart to Haydn, and Then? (abs.): AAPG Annual Meeting 2001, Program with Abstracts, Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

Pocknall, D. T., L. J. Wood, and A. F. Geen, 1999, Depositional facies in the Pliocene-Pleistocene section, offshore eastern Trinidad: Port-of-Spain, Transactions of the 14th Caribbean Geologic Conference, unpaginated.

Pocknall, D. T., L. J. Wood, A. F. Geen, B. E. Harry, and R. W. Hedlund, 1996, Integrated paleontological studies of Pliocene to Pleistocene deposits of the Orinoco Delta, eastern Venezuela and Trinidad (abs.): Houston, 9th International Palynological Congress, Program and Abstracts, Texas, unpaginated.

Ramkhelawan, R. Bhajan, J., Rampersad, T.R., Shepard, D.B., Weir, G.M. and Wharton, S.R., 2000, Seismic attribute analysis of deepwater reservoirs, offshore east coast Trinidad (abs.): Paper presented at the Geological Society of Trinidad and Tobago SPE conference held in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, July 10 - 13, (article and color illustrations available on CD-ROM made available to meeting participants and the public at www.gstt.org).

Sharp, J., Pish, T. and Bailey, J., 1998, Integration of 3D seismic technologies to predict Pliocene gas sands; post appraisal of the El Diablo-1 discovery, Trinidad: AAPG conference and exhibition Abstracts, AAPG Bulleting, v. 82, no. 1, p. 1966.

Wood, L.J., 2000, Chronostratigraphy and tectonostratigraphy of the Columbus Basin, eastern offshore Trinidad: American Association of Geologists Bulletin, vol. 84, no. 12, p. 1905-1928.

Prinzhoffer,A. , Battani,A. , Ballentine,C. ,Deville,D. , Herbin, J.P., Houzay,J.P., 2000, Gas geochemistry from mud volcanoes of Trinidad: Surface evidence of deep gas reservoirs, modified by vertical migration, Journal of Conference Abstracts, Volume 5(2), p. 819

Babb, S., and Mann, P., 1999, Structural and sedimentary development of a Neogene transpressional boundary between the Caribbean and South America plates in Trinidad and the Gulf of Paria, Caribbean Sedimentary Basins, Elsevier Sedimentary Basins of the World Series, Series Editor, K. Hsu, p. 495-557.

Mann, P., Weber, J., and Wood, L., 2001, Tectonic framework for Trinidad and its eastern offshore area, AAPG Annual meeting, June 3-6, Denver, Colorado.

Mann, P., and Wood, L., 2003, Late Quaternary transpressional deformation along the submarine extension of the Warm Springs-Central Range fault zone, eastern offshore Trinidad, AAPG annual meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah, May 11-14, 2003.

Wood, L., and Mann, P., 2003, Shale diapirs, mud volcanos, and fluid systems in offshore Trinidad and eastern Venezuela, AAPG International meeting, Barcelona, Spain, September, 2003.

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