The petroleum geological history begins in the Jurassic Figure 3 when the North Atlantic rift system has progressed southward to the Central Atlantic region. The southernmost tip of this rift system terminates in the Takutu Graben, onshore Guyana, where Jurassic lacustrine source rocks charged a non-economic light oil accumulation. This same rift system can be mapped on the shelf of Suriname using modern seismic data acquired by Western Geco in 2000.
As from the Lower Cretaceous, Southern Africa and South America started to rift apart, interrupting the first phase of thermal subsidence. The rifting started in the South Atlantic due to a counter-clock rotation of Africa relative to South America. Gentle compressional structures formed, mainly on the Demerara high. This compression caused inversion of the Jurassic rift basins in Suriname. A major peneplainisation of the entire Suriname-Guyana Basin during the Aptian/Albian resulted, and the break in the stratigraphy is evident throughout the basin. Thereafter Africa drifts away from South America, largely along transform fault systems, and a second passive margin sequence developed along the Suriname margin.