Deep-Water Gulf of Mexico: Integrating Recent Ideas on Salt Tectonics and Petroleum Geology

M. P. Curtis, G. S. I., J. F. Fox, R. Race, S. J. Seni

The need to find additional oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico is directing exploration interest more toward deeper waters south of the flexure trend. In these frontier areas, in the region of the Sigsbee scarp, unconventional potential trap types have been proposed and recognized, including subsalt and anticlinal traps associated with salt tongue intrusion and subsequent salt remobilization.

Most salt structures in the Gulf fall into three provinces (stocks, ridges, and sheets) that may represent different stages of structural maturity. It has been proposed that the deeper water sheets are more immature forms of salt features that are themselves behaving diapirically to form stocks, folds, and basins that can be compared to present-day nearshore counterparts.

A detailed understanding of the mechanics and history of salt intrusion is an important preliminary step toward identifying these more remote traps. To achieve this, physical centrifugal clay modeling studies have been used to confirm complex multiphase salt emplacement models originally developed partly from seismic observations.

By integrating high-quality seismic data with data from other sources, petroleum explorationists can apply their knowledge of salt tectonics to comprehensive studies focusing not only on potential traps but also on detailed basin analyses and migration-pathway studies. Only by highlighting areas suitable for good source bed and reservoir development, coupled with the proper migration and entrapment histories, can explorationists find plays with sufficient potential to justify drilling in the deep-water Gulf of Mexico.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91030©1988 AAPG Annual Convention, Houston, Texas, 20-23 March 1988.