Sequence Stratigraphy - Economic Significance

Economic Significance

These events have economic significance because these changes in sea level cause large lateral shifts in the depositional patterns of seafloor sediments. These lateral shifts in deposition create alternating layers of good reservoir quality rock (porous and permeable sands) and poorer-quality mudstones (capable of providing a reservoir "seal" to prevent the leakage of any accumulated hydrocarbons that may have migrated into the sandstones). Hydrocarbon prospectors look for places in the world where porous and permeable sands are overlain by low permeability rocks, and where conditions are right for hydrocarbons to be generated and migrate into these "traps".