Hydrocarbon Traps
A trap is a geologic structure or a stratigraphic feature capable of retaining hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbon traps that result from geological structures such as folds or faults are called structural traps.
Stratigraphic traps are traps that result from changes in rock type arising from geological features such as channels, unconformities, reefs and buried hills. Any mixture of structural and stratigraphic elements is called a combination trap.
| Structural Trap Examples | ||
 Place your cursor over the image to view 3d model |
||
 |
 |
|
| anticline | fault | |
| Stratigraphic Trap Examples | ||
 |
 |
|
| channel | pinchout | |
 |
 |
|
| unconformity sub-crop | reef | |
 |
 hydrocarbon  reservoir  seal unconformity |
|
| buried hill | ||
For further information on stratigraphic traps on the UKCS see Department of Energy:
Hurricane Exploration keynote paper on stratigraphic traps given at an international exploration conference in Bergen, 2007.
