Iodine-rich Waters of Turkey and Oil & Gas Potential of the Onshore

In this study, to determine iodine-rich waters associated with potential oil and gas deposits of Turkey, a new “Oilfield Water Differentiation Plot” has been developed. With the help of this plot, it has determined that a large number of iodinerich water resources throughout the country. The reason for iodine enrichment in surface waters and groundwaters of Turkey are the hydrocarbons- and iodine-rich reservoir waters migrated from deep oil and gas deposits to surface and near-surface with the effect of geological events (tectonism, volcanism etc.). Most important evidence of this migration is that iodine-rich waters are also rich in mature petroleum hydrocarbons. Waters rich in both iodine and mature petroleum hydrocarbons are oilfield waters. Due to the presence of a large number of waters with quite high of iodine content, the oil and gas potential of Western and Central Anatolia regions have higher than the Southeast Anatolia and Thrace basins. Thus, contrary to opinions put forward in many studies, concentration in areas where especially found a large number of active faults in Western and Central Anatolia regions of iodine-rich waters which determined with this study shows that no affected negatively by young geodynamic events of oil and gas deposits formed in various geological periods. The other important result of this study is determined that to be more suitable the use of reservoir-targeted organic hydrogeochemistry methods instead of the source rock-targeted organic rock and gas geochemistry for future oil and gas exploration in active tectonic (dynamically “excited”, “unbalanced”) and geologically complex basins of Turkey. The determination of iodine contents and geochemical properties of petroleum hydrocarbons in the water resources with classical petroleum geochemistry analysis to be made in 5189 water resources in the 76 cities of Turkey given appendix of this study will provide the identification of real oil and gas potential in onshore Turkey and determination new exploration targets throughout the country