How was the Niger Delta Basin formed?

The Niger Delta Basin was formed by a failed rift junction during the separation of the South American plate and the African plate, as the South Atlantic began to open. Also at this time syn-rift sands and then shales were deposited in the late Cretaceous. This indicates that the shoreline regressed during this time.

What is the Niger Delta famous for?

The delta is a petroleum-rich region and has been the center of international concern over pollution that has resulted principally from major oil spills of multinational corporations of the petroleum industry.

What is Depobelt?

Each depobelt is a separate unit that corresponds to a break in regional dip of the delta and is bounded landward by growth faults and seaward by large counter-regional faults or the growth fault of the next seaward belt (Evamy and others, 1978; Doust and Omatsola, 1990).

How many basins do we have in Nigeria?

In Nigeria there are eight main river basins, i.e. the Benue, Delta and Cross Rivers, the Imo-Anambra, Hadejia-Chad, Sokoto-Rima, Niger, Owena and Ogun, and Osun Basins.

How many sedimentary basins are in Nigeria?

Related Items. Nigeria is underlain by seven major sedimenta- ry basins, viz: (from the oldest), the Calabar Flank, the Benue Trough, the Chad Basin, SE lullem- menden (Sokoto) Basin, the Dahomey Basin, and the Niger Delta Basin.

Where is Niger Delta in Nigeria?

Introduction The Niger Delta region of Nigeria, located in the south-south zone of the country, is the region that produces oil – the lifeline of the Nigerian economy.

Who are Niger Deltans?

The real or core Niger Deltans are people from the South East and South South fringe of Nigeria. Before the advent of oil in the late 50s, the Niger Delta was an area which was known as the oil rivers because it’s an important palm producer and centered around the same core Niger Delta region and some others.

How many mountain are in Nigeria?

2,000 mountains
A country of over 200,000,000 people, 500 languages, and 2,000 mountains (with 2,130 named), Nigeria is an ever-growing and ever-changing country that has taken an increasingly important role in the sphere of West Africa and Africa as a whole.

Which is the deepest sedimentary basin?

Sedimentary basins are regions of the Earth’s crust dominated by subsidence. The deepest basins (>15 km) are found in the southern Caspian Sea and in the western Gulf of Mexico. Sedimentary rocks are important because they are the “tape recorder” of past climate, sea-level and environmental change.

How big is the Tertiary Niger Delta province?

The province covers 300,000 km 2 and includes the geologic extent of the Tertiary Niger Delta (Akata-Agbada) Petroleum System. The tectonic framework of the continental margin along the West Coast of equatorial Africa is controlled by Cretaceous fracture zones expressed as trenches and ridges in the deep Atlantic.

How are gravity tectonics used in the Niger Delta?

For any given depobelt, gravity tectonics were completed before deposition of the Benin Formation and are expressed in complex structures, including shale diapirs, roll-over anticlines, collapsed growth fault crests, back-to-back features, and steeply dipping, closely spaced flank faults (Evamy and others, 1978; Xiao and Suppe, 1992).

Where does oil come from in the Niger Delta?

Oil is produced from sandstone facies within the Agbada Formation, however, turbidite sand in the upper Akata Formation is a potential target in deep water offshore and possibly beneath currently producing intervals onshore. Known oil and gas resources of the Niger Delta rank the province as the twelfth largest in the world.

Which is the youngest part of the Niger Delta?

The Cretaceous section has not been penetrated beneath the Niger Delta Basin, the youngest and southernmost sub-basin in the Benue-Abakaliki trough (Reijers and others, 1997).