Print this pageHARRELSON, DANNY W., U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Vicksburg, MS 39180; and STEPHEN L. INGRAM, SR., Mississippi Office of Geology, Jackson, MS 39289
The Mississippi Valley Gas #1 Terry Bell was drilled as a stratigraphic test hole in Section 18, Township 17 North, Range 9 West, Washington County, Mississippi. It was plugged and abandoned in May 1964 after reaching a total depth of 5,156 feet and recovering 390 feet of diamond cores from 12 intervals (3,963 feet to 5, 100 feet). Regionally, the test hole is situated along the northern edge of the Monroe-Sharkey Uplift in an igneous province originally defined by gravity surveys in the 1930's. The cores contain numerous intervals of extrusive igneous rocks and zones with contact metamorphism that have altered the enclosing formations, thereby making stratigraphic correlations with wells in the region extremely difficult. Petrographic work in the 1970's classified several of these igneous intervals as Phonolite (between 4,019 feet and 4,289 feet), but a detailed analysis was not undertaken and stratigraphic correlations remained problematic. In 1999 a petrographic analysis of all 12 cores was conducted and the entire section interpreted as Eagle Mills, Norphlet, Smackover, and Haynesville Formations unconformably overlain by Late Cretaceous through Holocene age deposits. The synorogenic nature of the Triassic and Jurassic sections in the Terry Bell well indicates conditions are ideal for stratigraphic pinchouts and combination structural-stratigraphic traps on the northern flanks of the Monroe-Sharkey Uplift.
HARRELSON, DANNY W. and STEPHEN L. INGRAM, SR.
AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90908©2000 GCAGS, Houston, Texas