Print this pageAbstract: The Evolving
Exploration of the 
Subsalt
Play in the Offshore Gulf of Mexico
MOORE, DWIGHT "CLINT", and ROBERT BROOKS
The co-existence
of horizontal components of salt movement with subsalt traps in the south
additions of the Louisiana and Texas shelf and slope has been recognized
within the last decade. Throughout the 1970's and 1980's, hundreds of wells
were drilled into salt on the outer shelf and slope of the northwestern
Gulf of Mexico. These wells barely penetrated salt features that are now
known to be laterally emplaced horizontal salt sheets. Drilling was typically
stopped thousands of feet short of testing the potential sizable petroleum
reservoirs of the subsalt exploration play, which is now being pursued
and developed.
Horizontal emplacement of Gulf
of Mexico salt sheets, and their effect on subsalt drilling results, can
be demonstrated using seismic sections, well logs, and biostratigraphy
from over 30 wells drilled through varying thicknesses of these salt sheets.
The presence of thick subsalt sands, such as those observed in SMI 200,
are now also proven. Subsalt petroleum discoveries, announced in SS 349,
ST 260, GB 128, SS 361 and MC 211, have confirmed the play and encourage
future exploratory drilling. As advanced acquisition and processing techniques
provide improvements in seismic image resolution, and subsalt well control
refines geologic models and concepts, geoscientific integration will lead
to additional significant discoveries in multiple-style traps beneath the
horizontal salt sheets of the offshore Gulf of Mexico.
The 1990's should be the "Decade
of Discovery" for this significant subsalt petroleum potential, hidden
by these salt sheets that have obscured subsalt
seismic images for decades.
AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90942©1997 AAPG International Conference and Exhibition, Vienna, Austria