--> Sequence Stratigraphy and Core Facies of the Haynesville Mudstone, East Texas Ursula Hammes, #90093 (2009)

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Sequence Stratigraphy and Core Facies

of the Haynesville Mudstone, East Texas

 

 

Ursula Hammes

 

Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences,

The University of Texas at Austin, University Station, Box X, Austin, Texas  78713

   

 

EXTENDED ABSTRACT

 

The upper Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) Haynesville Shale is an important shale-gas resource play in East Texas and Louisiana.  Estimated recoverable reserves are as much as 60 Tcf, with each well estimated to produce on the average of 6.5 Bcf EUR (estimated ultimate recoverable).  Initial production has been reported of up to 28 MMcf/day.  Typical thickness of the Haynesville Shale ranges between 300 and 400 ft in western Louisiana and 200 and 300 ft in Texas at burial depths between 11,000 and 14,000 ft.  Haynesville carbonates are known for their excellent production from carbonate shoals and pinnacle reefs in the East Texas Salt Basin.  Goldhammer (1998), Goldhammer and Johnson (2001), and Goldhammer et al. (2003) developed a sequence stratigraphic framework for the Mesozoic for the East Texas Salt Basin, for the western Gulf of Mexico, and for Haynesville carbonates.  However, neither the sequence stratigraphy nor the depositional setting of the Haynesville Shale has been well documented.  A sequence stratigraphic model of basinal shale to shelfal carbonate sequences was therefore established to determine the extent of the shale-gas play, facies, and reservoir characteristics of the Haynesville shale-gas formation using wireline logs, seismic, and cores into East Texas.

 

The upper Jurassic Louark sequence in East Texas makes up parts of two second-order supersequences (SS1 and SS2; Goldhammer, 1998).  The Haynesville composes the transgressive systems tract of the SS2 second-order sequence above the 144-m.y. sequence boundary, part of a supersequence from the lower Kimmeridgian to Berriasian (144-128.5 m.y.; Goldhammer and Johnson, 2001), where carbonates formed on the shelf and preexisting, salt-cored highs and organic-rich shales were deposited in the basin.  Four to five regionally correlative third-order sequences compose the transgressive systems tract of the second-order supersequence SS2.  These cycles were correlated from basin to shelf, reflecting smaller scale, sea-level fluctuations within the overall second-order transgression.  Typically, each third-order shale sequence is characterized, from bottom to top, by siliceous mudstone, followed by laminated mudstone, and capped by calcareous mudstone (Fig. 1).  This sequence reflects an upward-shallowing sequence with euxinic conditions at the bottom, as evidenced by framboidal pyrite in black mudstones.  The overlying laminated mudstone facies contains laminae of calcitic shell fragments, peloids, rare silt, and organic layers.  The number of calcitic shell fragments is typically increasing toward the top of the sequence, and pervasive bioturbation is present at the top of the calcite-rich facies.  Three to five third-order sequences are within the second-order transgression that can be correlated into pinnacle reefs and are onlapping the carbonate platform toward the west (Fig. 2).

 

A marine condensed section marks the top of the Haynesville Shale, coinciding with the second-order maximum flooding surface.  Upper Bossier Shale highstand deposits represent distal parts of the overlying Cotton Valley siliciclastic wedge that downlaps this maximum flooding surface.  The upper Bossier Shale, dominated by siliciclastics, is less organic rich, and it contains less total organic carbon (TOC) than the Haynesville Shale.  This presentation will define sequence stratigraphy and facies from cores of the Haynesville mudstones in East Texas.

 

 

References CITEd

 

Goldhammer, R. K., 1998, Second-order accommodation cycles and points of “stratigraphic turnaround”:  Implications for carbonate buildup reservoirs in Mesozoic carbonate systems of the East Texas Salt Basin and South Texas, in W. D. DeMis and M. K. Nelis, eds., West Texas Geological Society annual field conference guidebook, West Texas Geologic Society Publication 98-105, Midland, p. 11-28.

 

Goldhammer, R. K., and C. A. Johnson, 2001, Middle Jurassic – Upper Cretaceous paleogeographic evolution and sequence stratigraphic framework of the northwest Gulf of Mexico rim, in C. Bartolini, A. Cantu-Chapa, and          R. T. Buffler, eds., The western Gulf of Mexico Basin:  Tectonics, sedimentary basins and petroleum systems:  American Association of Petroleum Geologists Memoir 75, Tulsa, Oklahoma, p. 45-81.

 

Goldhammer, R. K., P. J. Lehman, and R. G. Todd., 2003, Mesozoic sequence stratigraphy of the Mesozoic of the Sierra Madre Oriental, northeast Mexico:  Gulf Coast Section of the Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists Foundation Special Publications in Geology 2, Houston, Texas, p. 43-52.

 

 

 

Hammes, U., 2009, Sequence stratigraphy and core facies of the Haynesville mudstone, East Texas:  Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions, v. 59, p. 321-324.

 

 

fig01 Figure 1.  Core description of Shell Temple #1 core, Sabine County, Texas.  Samples of slabbed core are representative of main Haynesville mudstone facies types.
fig02

 Figure 2.  Cross section of shelf-to-basin transect in Texas showing Smackover/Haynesville/Bossier sequences.  This west-east section extends from the Haynesville platform carbonates in Freestone County, across the East Texas Salt Basin (ETSB), onto the Sabine Uplift, showing fluctuations in thickness related to preexisting paleogeography.  HST, highstand systems tract; and TST, transgressive systems tract.


AAPG Search and Discover Article #90093 © 2009 GCAGS 59th Annual Meeting, Shreveport, Louisiana