--> Abstract: Description and Quantitative Modeling of Oolitic Reservoir Analogs Within the Lower Kansas City Group (Pennsylvanian), Southeastern Kansas, by J. A. French and W. L. Watney; #91008 (1991)

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Description and Quantitative Modeling of Oolitic Reservoir Analogs Within the Lower Kansas City Group (Pennsylvanian), Southeastern Kansas

FRENCH, J. A., and W. L. WATNEY, Kansas Geological Survey and University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS

A significant number of petroleum reservoirs within the Kansas City Group in central and western Kansas are dominantly oolitic grainstones that cap 10- to 30-m-thick, shallowing-upward, carbonate-rich depositional sequences. Coeval units that occur at and near the surface in southeastern Kansas contain similar porous lithofacies that have been examined in detail via cores, outcrops, and an extensive log database to better understand the equivalent reservoirs.

These studies suggest that individual oolitic, reservoir-quality units in the Bethany Falls Limestone (equivalent to the K zone in the subsurface) developed at several relative sea level stands that occurred during development of a highstand systems tract within this depositional sequence. As many as three grain-rich parasequences (potential reservoirs?) may occur at a given location. The occurrence of multiple parasequences indicates a relatively complex history of K-zone deposition (and possibly diagenesis as well), which likely resulted in significant effects on reservoir architecture (such as vertical compartmentalization) at particular shelf locations.

Two-dimensional forward modeling of this sequence with our interactive, PC-based software has revealed that limited combinations of parameters such as shelf configuration, eustasy, sedimentation rates, and subsidence rates generate strata successions similar to those observed. Sensitivity analysis (i.e., multiple iterations) coupled with regional characterization of processes suggest ranges of values that these parameters could have had during deposition of these units. The ultimate goal of this modeling is to improve our ability to predict facies development in areas of potential and known hydrocarbon accumulations.

 

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91008©1991 AAPG Mid-Continent Section Meeting, Kansas Geological Society, Wichita Kansas, September 22-24, 1991 (2009)