--> Abstract: Analogs for Deep-Water Reservoirs - Confined-Channel Complexes in Mesozoic and Cenozoic Strata, California; #90063 (2007)

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Analogs for Deep-Water Reservoirs - Confined-Channel Complexes in Mesozoic and Cenozoic Strata, California

 

Campion, Kirt M.1, Anthony Sprague1, Morgan D. Sullivan2 (1) ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company, Houston, TX (2) Chevron Energy Technology Company, Houston, TX

 

Reservoirs within deep-water, slope environments are a target of industry exploration and development. Along with exploration, outcrop analogs have been sought to help understand and model stratal architecture and lithofacies distribution within these deep-water systems. Outcrops exist in Mesozoic and Cenozoic sections in California that provide insight into the hierarchical arrangement of layering in deep-water strata and the distribution of lithofacies within these systems. These rocks include strata in the Great Valley Group, part of a forearc system, and Neogene strata associated with borderland basins. The depositional environments for these rocks include erosionally confined canyons and levee-confined channels. Distributive systems associated with basin floor setting are not common in the outcrops examined.

 

Outcrops used to document elements of the channel hierarchy included the Capistrano Formation (Miocene) exposed in the sea cliffs near San Clemente, the Scripps Formation (Eocene) exposed in the sea cliff near La Jolla, and the Stony Creek Formation (Berriasian-Valanginian?) in northern California. The Capistrano is a sand-dominated complex of channel remnants that are about 15 m thick and 1.2 km wide and serve as a model for seismically defined, single-cycle reservoirs. In contrast, the Scripps is about 100 m thick and 3 km wide, heterolithic and serves as a model for seismically defined, multi-cycle reservoirs. The Stony Creek Formation is about 3 km thick, dominated with mudstone but contains local conglomerate lenses that are up to 300 m thick and extend in a dip direction up to 35 km. Forward seismic models of these outcrops indicate that the channel complex is the smallest element resolved using conventional seismic data (25-35 hz peak frequency).

 

AAPG Search and Discover Article #90063©2007 AAPG Annual Convention, Long Beach, California