--> Abstract: The Powder River Basin - A Classic Area of Basement Control on Oil & Gas Fields, Including a Number of "Purely Stratigraphic Traps", by S. P. Gay, Jr.; #90946 (1997).
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Abstract: The Powder River Basin - A Classic Area of Previous HitBasementNext Hit Control on Oil & Gas Fields, Including a Number of "Purely Stratigraphic Traps"

GAY, S. PARKER, JR.

In the Powder River Basin most of the prolific oil producing formations were laid down during the Cretaceous period contemporaneously with the Laramide orogeny. This powerful EW or ENE-directed compressional event strongly affected depositional Previous HitpatternsNext Hit in the strata and created many of the traps and/or reservoirs into which oil migrated.

Given the Previous HitfaultNext Hit Previous HitblockNext Hit nature of Previous HitbasementNext Hit and the occurrences of weakness zones bounding these Previous HitblocksNext Hit - the subject of previous presentations by the author - it is not difficult to imagine that there should be Previous HitbasementNext Hit control of individual oil fields. The Previous HitbasementNext Hit Previous HitfaultNext Hit Previous HitblockNext Hit pattern has not been mappable under thick sedimentary cover in the past with any of the common geological or geophysical techniques, but it is possible to map these Previous HitblocksNext Hit using properly acquired, processed, and interpreted aeromagnetic data. Comparisons of this type of mapping with well known traps and reservoirs in the basin have shown many one-on-one correlations, indicating the following types of Previous HitbasementNext Hit control have taken place:

(1) Frontier-Dakota formations - asymmetric folds created during Laramide compression by high angle reverse faults over Previous HitbasementNext Hit weakness zones,

(2) Muddy formation - channels following low topography in the underlying shale resulting from erosion of more highly jointed areas located over Previous HitbasementNext Hit faults, and

(3) Shannon Sussex Ferguson, Tecla, Teapot sands - sand bars that apparently formed from the winnowing action of bottom currents flowing over sea floor highs resulting from high angle reverse faults at Previous HitbasementTop level.

I will show examples of about 20 individual oil fields that fall in the above categories, including Poison Draw, Hartzog Draw, Dead Horse-Barber Creek, Salt Creek, Big Muddy, Bell Creek, Fiddler Creek, and Clareton.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90946©1997 AAPG Rocky Mountain Section Meeting, Denver, Colorado