Abstract: Ordovician Oil Accumulation at Northeast Lucien Field, Noble County, Oklahoma

Ralph O. Kehle, Steven D. Hulke

An anomalous oil accumulation occurs in the Middle Ordovician Marshall Sandstone (Simpson Group) at Northeast Lucien field, a northeast-trending nose at the north end of Lucien field, Noble County, Oklahoma. Many other nearby structures are dry, apparently because Late Ordovician growth of the large anticlinal structure to the south at Lucien field resulted in drainage of oil from a wide area surrounding Lucien. Structures that developed later within this previously drained area are barren. Because there was no structural closure at Northeast Lucien on the Viola Limestone (late Middle Ordovician age) during pre-Mississippian times, the Northeast Lucien structure should have been dry. Instead, over 1 million bbl of oil have been produced from five wells in the Marshall san stone.

At Northeast Lucien, oil apparently originally was trapped stratigraphically along a northwest-trending pinchout of the Marshall sandstone, a reworked eolian sand deposited in a sabkha. This sandstone had a southwest dip of 90 ft/mi (17 m/km) by the beginning of late Middle Ordovician (basal Viola) time. Before Woodford Shale deposition (Late Devonian), a syncline with its axis parallel with the pinchout developed just southwest of the pinchout, thereby isolating part of the stratigraphically entrapped oil from the emerging Lucien structure on the south, and prohibiting drainage. Later deformation resulted in the formation of the northwest-trending nose at Northeast Lucien, which localized the stratigraphic accumulation in its present position.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90969©1977 AAPG-SEPM Rocky Mountain Sections Meeting, Denver, Colorado