ABSTRACT: Reservoir Development in Brahaney Northwest and Patricia Fields, Northern Midland Basin, Texas

Louis J. Mazzullo

Porous pay zones in the Silurian-Devonian section of the northern Midland basin, Texas, vary stratigraphically, as well as structurally, with their locations beneath the pre-Woodford unconformity. These variations are related to at least two major periods of widespread pre-Woodford tectonism and erosion. A major unconformable surface, present at the top of the Lower Silurian Fusselman formation, was later modified by tectonism and erosion immediately preceding deposition of the Woodford Shale. In places where the Fusselman subcrops beneath the Woodford, its capacity for reservoir development is dependent upon the severity of geologic events that affected the formation during the two major tectonic/erosional events. Where the Wristen and Thirtyone formations subcrop, their reservoir capacity depends upon the extent of structuring and subsequent erosion immediately prior to Woodford deposition.

Two pre-Woodford oil fields in the northern Midland basin illustrate geologic complexity that bears on the successful application of subsurface mapping in defining potential pay zones. Brahaney Northwest field in Yoakum County is productive from fractured, coarse crystalline Silurian-Devonian dolomites on subtle, fault-bounded structures. These structures, defined seismically on the base of the Woodford, do not reveal the more complex structural and stratigraphic variations within the reservoir itself. Patricia field in Dawson County is productive from Fusselman carbonates where upper Fusselman structural and topographic relief coincides with post-Woodford faulting and low-relief anticlinal closure as defined at the base of the Woodford.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90096©1990 AAPG Southwest Section Meeting, Wichita Falls, Texas, March 11-13, 1990