--> Abstract: Oolite Shoals of the St. Louis Formation, Gray County, Kansas: A Guide for Oil and Gas Exploration, by P. G. Sutterlin and K. D. Parham; #91008 (1991)

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Oolite Shoals of the St. Louis Formation, Gray County, Kansas: A Guide for Oil and Gas Exploration

SUTTERLIN, PETER G., Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, and KERRY D. PARHAM,* Kansas Geological Survey, Lawrence, KS

Geologists familiar with the Mississippian St. Louis formation in southeastern Kansas have interpreted the productive oolite shoals of the St. Louis in the region as representing linear ramp barrier-type deposits which developed southwest of, and parallel to, a southwesterly trending shoreline. However, examination of available cores and interpretation of electric-log data from the Ingalls field in Gray County suggest that production is from an oolite shoal that is situated leeward of a small "island" developed on a carbonate mud flat. Positive magnetic and gravity anomalies associated with the Ingalls field imply deep structures which might have resulted in subtle perturbations on the Mississippian seafloor that in turn provided loci for ooid shoal formation. Classified lithologicall as an oolitic grainstone, the most productive facies of the shoal exhibits primary intergranular porosity with evidence of only minor diagenetic porosity enhancement. An important implication for future exploration is that St. Louis formation oolitic buildups in this area could be present in pairs, occurring on both the leeward and basinward side of coastal plain "islands" that might have formed an archipelago extending into the Hugoton embayment of the Anadarko basin.

 

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