East Breaks petroleum geology
| Exploring for Oil and Gas Traps | |
| |
| Series | Treatise in Petroleum Geology |
|---|---|
| Part | Critical elements of the petroleum system |
| Chapter | Sedimentary basin analysis |
| Author | John M. Armentrout |
| Link | Web page |
| Store | AAPG Store |
Field development, including step-out drilling, and exploration are enhanced by the understanding of the petroleum system—especially the occurrence of probable source rock, migration pathways, and reservoir.
Generation-migration-accumulation
Reservoired oils in the East Breaks 160-161 field are more thermally mature than the surrounding sediments, demonstrating that the hydrocarbons were contributed from deeper source rocks. Their generation history is controlled by the thermal gradient and overburden rock accumulation history, interpreted from both regional depocenter patterns and local minibasin history. Fault and salt-wall migration pathways provide vertical avenues for migration. Slope basin gravity-flow sands are the principal reservoir target in the High Island–East Breaks area for all except the most shallow stratigraphic intervals, where wave-dominated deposition of shelf sands produced laterally continuous sheetlike reservoirs subsequently draped over anticlinal structure.
Traps
The gravity-flow sands were transported and deposited within sea-floor physiographic lows between the anticlinal structures and within the isochron thicks of the synclinal sediment fill. Petroleum accumulations occur within traps where these synclinal sandstones are folded over postdepositional anticlines.[1] or within structural-stratigraphic traps where synclinal sandstones pinch out against sea-floor valley margins[2] or completely bypassed valley conduits subsequently filled by mudstone plugs[3]
See also
- East Breaks petroleum system
- Exploration strategy for deep-water sands
- Stratigraphic predictions from computer simulation
References
- ↑ Armentrout, J. M., 1991, Paleontological constraints on depositional modeling: examples of integration of biostratigraphy and seismic stratigraphy, Pliocene–Pleistocene, Gulf of Mexico, in P. Weimer, and M. H. Link, eds., Seismic Facies and Sedimentary Processes of Submarine Fans and Turbidite Systems: New York, Springer-Verlag, p. 137–170.
- ↑ McGee, D. T., P. W. Bilinski, P. S. Gary, D. S. Pfeiffer, and J. L. Sheiman, 1994, Geologic models and reservoir geometries of Auger field, deepwater Gulf of Mexico: Proceedings, Gulf Coast Section SEPM 15th Annual Research conference, p. 245–256.
- ↑ Galloway, W. E., and T. A. McGilvery, 1995, Facies of a submarine canyon fill reservoir complex, lower Wilcox Group (Paleocene), central Texas coastal plain, in R. D. Winn, Jr., and J. M. Armentrout, eds., Turbidites and Associated Deep-Water Facies: WEPM Core Workshop 20, p. 1–23.
External links
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