Аннотация:The earlier modeling helped explain the contradiction between the high thermal regime of the mantle of the South Caspian Basin and the abnormally low temperatures of the upper 6 km of its sedimentary blanket. The modeling suggested that the "oil window" is located at the depths from 4.5 to 9 km in the modern sections of the South Apsheron Trough and includes the rocks of the Productive and Pontian formations which are not source rocks in the basin. To solve this problem, we used reconstruction of the thermal history of the basin to restore numerically the history of realization of hydrocarbon potential of the Maikop and Diatomaceous formations. Our modeling shown that the non-steady thermal regime of the mantle in the region and avalanche sedimentation in the Pliocene-Quaternary have shifted the time of intense hydrocarbon generation close to the present time. The maximum generation of light oil by the rocks of the Maikop and Diatomaceous formations occurred for the last 2 to 7 million years when avalanche sedimentation in the Pliocene-Quaternary time took place in the Basin and the powerful layers of weakly compacted highly permeable rocks were created. Assuming the possibility of vertical migration through weakly compacted layers to the horizons with lower temperatures, it can be said that the Upper Maikop and Diatomaceous rocks are promising for the generation of liquid hydrocarbons (mainly of light oil) and gas. The modeling presented in this paper help to understand a leading contribution of the Maikop and Diatomaceous source formations to formation of oil and gas accumulations, despite these suites in present-day sedimentary section locate deeper than the "oil generation window".
Keywords: South Caspian, heavy and light oil generation, secondary cracking, vitrinite reflectance