--> Abstract: Exploring the Wichita Mountain Front--With New Parameters, by R. E. Schneider; #91008 (1991)

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Exploring the Wichita Mountain Front--With New Parameters

SCHNEIDER, RICHARD E., Schneider Strata Science, Inc., Oklahoma City, OK

Understanding the short south flank of the Anadarko basin has been limited by a lack of well control and extremely poor seismic data in this complex trend. This flank lies immediately south of the synclinal axis of the Anadarko basin and has been uplifted nearly 40,000 ft in a space of 5 to 10 mi. Variously called the Wichita Mountain front or the buried Wichita-Amarillo mountains, this trend separates-the deep Anadarko basin from the Hardeman or Palo Duro basin to the south. With tensional forces during the Acadian and Wichitan orogenies, then compressional movement in the Late Pennsylvanian (the Arbuckle orogeny), this 250-mi trend traverses more than half of southwestern Oklahoma. It extends from the Arbuckle Mountains westward into the Texas Panhandle and is noted for its early sh llow oil and gas fields in its uppermost blocks. For the past 25 years deeper drilling, especially in Beckham County, Oklahoma, and Wheeler County, Texas, has found huge quantities of gas in the lower Paleozoic carbonates. These limestones and dolomites in the Hunton and Arbuckle are becoming attractive targets because of the recent activity at Cottonwood Creek, Susie Pi-Hoodle (Alden area), and the new Park Avenue well south of Cordell. In February 1991 an extensive 460-mi survey of 28 seismic lines was completed--shooting with the intent to image the intermediate fault blocks that bring those carbonates up from 40,000 ft of burial to the surface along the Wichita Mountain front. For the first time, detailed high-resolution data has been obtained in previously poor-to-questionable recor areas. Including a series of dip lines from West Mayfield to Lawton that show the structural style and types of hydrocarbon traps that are attracting large exploration dollars, this talk will also discuss the new parameters needed to obtain high-quality data.

 

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