Deformation of the Stratigraphic Column to Basement Involved Structure at Hamilton Dome, Hot Springs County, Wyoming

Leyton Woolf
Colorado School of Mines, Department of Geology and Geological Engineering
Golden, CO
[email protected]

Hamilton Dome is a basement-involved anticline located in the southwest portion of the Bighorn Basin. The structure was created by offset of Precambrian basement blocks along reverse fault(s) that cut the Paleozoic section but do not penetrate the Mesozoic section. The structure is covered by the Hamilton Dome oilfield, which has produced in excess of 250 million barrels of oil since its discovery. The Thermopolis Anticline, which outcrops directly to the southeast, is a well-studied en echelon basement-involved structure that serves as an analog for Hamilton Dome. The goal of this investigation is twofold: (1) describe the deformation of plastic versus less plastic strata at Hamilton Dome, and (2) to develop a series of reconstructions that account for the observed geometries.

This goal will be accomplished by picking horizons from available well-logs and then exporting those horizons into a 3D modeling package. From the 3D package, cross-section lines will be exported into a 2D modeling package where the reconstructions will be built. The reconstructions will be generated honoring observations from well-logs, strain measurements taken at Thermopolis Anticline and surface observations of dip.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90033©2004 AAPG Foundation Grants-in-Aid