Origin of Early
Overpressure in the Upper Devonian Catskill Delta Complex, Western New York State
Lash, Gary G.1, David
Blood2 (1) SUNY Fredonia, Fredonia, NY (2) Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC, Charleston, WV
The Upper Devonian Rhinestreet
black shale of the western New York state region of the
Appalachian Basin has experienced multiple episodes of overpressure generation
manifested by at least two sets of natural hydraulic fractures. These
overpressure events were thermal in origin and induced by the generation of
hydrocarbons during the Alleghanian orogeny close to or at the Rhinestreet's
~3.1 km maximum burial depth. Analysis of differential gravitational compaction
strain of the organic-rich shale around embedded carbonate concretions that
formed within a meter or so of the seafloor indicates that the Rhinestreet shale was compacted ~58%. Compaction strain was
recalculated to a paleoporosity of 37.8%, a value
well in excess of that expected for burial > 3 km. The paleoporosity
of the Rhinestreet shale suggests that porosity
reduction caused by normal gravitational compaction of the low-permeability
carbonaceous sediment was arrested at some depth shy of its maximum burial
depth by pore pressure in excess of hydrostatic. The depth at which the Rhinestreet shale became overpressured,
the paleo-fluid retention depth, was estimated by use
of published normal compaction curves and empirical porosity-depth algorithms
to fall between 850 and 1,380 m. Early and relatively shallow overpressuring of the Rhinestreet
shale likely originated by disequilibrium compaction induced by a marked
increase in sedimentation rate in the latter half of the Famennian
stage (Late Devonian) as the Catskill Delta Complex prograded
westward across the Appalachian Basin in response to Acadian tectonics. The
regional Upper Devonian stratigraphy of western New York state
indicates that the onset of overpressure occurred at a depth of ~1,100 m, well
in advance of the Rhinestreet shale's entry into the
oil window during the Alleghanian orogeny.