Structural Geology and Petroleum Systems of the Newly Discovered Covenant Field Area, Central Utah Thrust Belt

Doug Strickland¹, John P. Vrona¹, Keith R. Johnson¹, Daniel D. Schelling², and David A. Wavrek³. (1) Wolverine Gas and Oil Corporation, One Riverfront Plaza, 55 Campau NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49503-2616, phone: 616-458-1150, fax: 616-458-0869, [email protected], (2) Structural Geology International, LLC, 474 3rd Ave, Salt Lake City, UT 84103, (3) Petroleum Systems International, Inc, 576 East South Temple, Salt Lake City, UT 84102

Structural analysis, seismic interpretation, and organic geochemistry are all part of the petroleum systems synthesis that contributed to the Covenant Field discovery in Central Utah by Wolverine Gas and Oil Corporation. The Kings Meadow Ranch 17-1 penetrates a highly porous and permeable reservoir in the Jurassic Navajo sandstone which contains a 450 foot oil column. The field is located along a frontal structural uplift to the Central Utah thrust belt, where Late Cretaceous-Early Tertiary compressional deformation resulted in the development of thrust faults and associated hanging wall anticlines buttressed against the ancestral Ephraim extensional fault. The traps are charged from Mississippian foreland basin sediments to the west of the discovery, and hydrocarbon generation was driven by the initial sedimentary loading (oil generation) followed by tectonic loading (gas generation) associated with the evolving thrust belt. Evaporite deposition in the overlying Arapien formation provides a highly effective seal for the accumulations. Jurassic extensional faults may be critical in defining the location of thrust faults and antiformal stacks, which in turn define structural traps along this newly discovered onshore hydrocarbon province.