Thrust belt research is on the increase, partly driven by a range of new modelling approaches and a well-connected community of active researchers. But in recent years a major motivation has been the increased exploration activity for oil and gas in thrust belts. In his recent review Cooper (2007) indicates that 14% of the World's discovered hydrocarbon reserves are in thrust and fold belts. This makes for an insatiable market place and there is no shortage of thrust belt publications, chiefly arising from a steady stream of conferences. Olivier Lacombe and his co-editors’ volume Thrust Belts and Foreland Basins continues the trend. It arises from a three-day joint meeting of the geological societies of France and Spain, held in Paris in late 2005 that attracted over 120 participants from over 20 countries. So how is this new book different from the rest?
The 25 papers are grouped in seven topical sections, each briefly introduced by the editors. The first few sections deal with a diverse suite of analytical approaches: lithospheric-scale issues kick the volume off. Burov's review provides a good introduction to one large-scale tectonic modelling approach. There follows a couple of contributions on seismic imaging in thrust belts that show how seismic image quality in thrust belts can be greatly enhanced when geology is incorporated into velocity models. Of course this is well established, certainly in the major oil companies, but it is good to see these innovations making their way into the research community. Part three contains two papers on fluid migration in thrust belts that both stress the importance of resolving the timing of deformation, burial and uplift. These lead into a section on restoration and modelling. The two stand-out papers, both from the IFP group, serve as valuable ‘how-to’ reviews. Moretti et al. give a common-sense discussion of 3D structural restoration while Hardebol et al. present an interesting application of thrustpack modelling in the Rockies.
The remainder of the papers are essentially case studies but from historically under-studied settings. The majority here deal with the Zagros and Makran thrust and fold systems, a region that contains nearly half of the known hydrocarbon reserves that are hosted by convergent plate boundaries (Cooper, 2007). While the resource implications feature, many papers show the area's pre-eminence as a natural deformation laboratory through the combination of excellent satellite imagery, geodetic and seismological data. There are also papers on the Carpathians, a region of significant hydrocarbon potential but under-represented in the scientific literature. The final section deals with tectonostratigraphic issues, chiefly in the Apennines, that perhaps would sit more comfortably at the start of the book.
In summary, this book is a valuable addition to the literature on thrust belts. It is generally well illustrated and slick. The review style of some of the papers, together with a focus on examples that are of interest to the hydrocarbons industry, may add to its shelf life. It certainly a must for libraries. The collection is the first from a new ‘task force’ of the International Lithosphere Program, so expect to see other volumes dealing with other aspects of basin evolution in the coming years. The challenge facing these initiatives lies in integrating the vast amounts of high quality geophysical data and expertise that resides in the hydrocarbons industry with the research agendas of academia.
