Abstract: A Newly Recognized Upper Cherokee Channel Sand Complex Meanders Through SE Kansas

STOECKINGER, W.T.

Shallow gas pockets (some converted to storage) were found in the early 1900s in thick sands of Upper Desmoinesian age. Enigmatic trapping mechanism, unique light green oil, mostly methane gas, rejuvenating formation pressures, and exceptional recoveries are explained by proving for the first time the Squirrel-Cattleman sands are encased in a "U" shaped channel, one mile wide, 150 feet deep and which gently meanders north-south through eastern Montgomery, Wilson, and Woodson Counties.

The channel can only be recognized on geophysical logs where it slices down through a half dozen cyclotherms of the Cabaniss formation. Regional west dip and east facing meanders form perfect stratigraphic traps. Sand is distributed within the channel as classic point bars. Splaying is common only near the Oklahoma border, east of Coffeyville. Often the channel is 100% clay filled. However, when sand dominates, differential compaction domes the overlying Fort Scott limes, generating early anticlinal closure for the lucrative Mulky-Shale gas reserves first tapped in the 1920s. Thin coals, capping each lithic cycle, abut the channel and sourced gas into it, even re-pressuring it.

Channel recognition will, on a sounder footing, rejuvenate development in this very mature oil and gas province.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90944©1997 AAPG Mid-Continent Section Meeting, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma