Seismic Interpretation of Rich Hill 3D, Salt Creek and Rich Hill Townships, Muskingum County, Ohio

Abstract

In 2008, a 32 square mile 3D was shot in Rich Hill and Salt Creek Township of Muskingum County, Ohio by Artex Oil Company. The Rich Hill 3D was shot to target the Lower Ordovician Beekmantown Dolomite, a stratigraphic interval where porosity was developed due to abandoned karst aquifers preserved inside of buried remnants. Inside of the 3D there are approximately 30 Beekmantown producing wells owned by different Ohio operators; as of 2019 the wells inside this 3D have produced 11 billion cubic feet of natural gas. Differential compaction of the Lower Chazy and Glenwood Shale fill deposit is a critical factor in understanding the relationship between these formations and the formations below the Post-Knox Unconformity (PKUNC). Differential compaction is consistent within the bounds of the Rich Hill 3D, allowing basic statistics to be integrated between the geology and the 3D seismic data to identify highs and lows. In conjunction with understanding differential compaction, the use of higher frequency versions of the seismic may allow interpretation of porosity zones within the Beekmantown remnants which will assist in high grading the prospective well locations.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90373 © 2019 AAPG Eastern Section Meeting, Energy from the Heartland, Columbus, Ohio, October 12-16, 2019