--> Abstract: The Keg River/Winnipegosis Petroleum System--Source to Trap (Part II), by K. C. Kirkby and S. W. Tinker; #91004 (1991)

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The Keg River/Winnipegosis Petroleum System--Source to Trap (Part II)

KIRKBY, KENT C., Union Pacific Resources, Madison, WI, and SCOTT W. TINKER, Marathon Oil Co., Littleton, CO

The Keg River/Winnipegosis Formation is a heterogeneous hydrocarbon system composed of three oil families based upon gas chromatography of extracts from nine potential source rocks, six oil stained cores, and oils from fourteen Keg River/Winnipegosis fields.

Family 1--The "pinnacle" play oils (North Alberta, South Saskatchewan, and North Dakota), together with Virago field (Southeast Alberta), comprise a locally sourced (upper Keg River/lower Muskeg/Ratner) family that exhibits a broad maturity range heavily dependent upon present burial depths and geothermal gradients. Family 2--Oils from Utikima Lake, Peerless, Panny, and Senex fields in Alberta are a homogeneous, migrated oil sourced from the Duvernay Formation (upper Devonian). Family 3--Oils from Temple field (North Dakota) and oil-stained carbonate cores of west-central Saskatchewan are of unknown source (possibly mixed Ordovician and Devonian or Mississippian).

Long-distance (> 200 mi or > 320 km) oil migration routes through the thermally immature Keg River carbonates of Northeast Alberta were tracked by epi-fluorescence (E-F) study of 200 thin sections. Drill stem test (DST) recoveries and E-F oil shows demonstrate that oil migration extended northeast of the Senex area to the Keg River shelf margin. Oil migration along the shelf margin was southeast, oblique to regional structural dip. E-F shows in shelf margin strata continue southeast to the Cold Lake Weapon Range where a pre-Cretaceous dissolution event removed the overlying Muskeg halite seal. Porous carbonates of the Keg River shelf margin were possibly a migration route for oils sourcing the Cretaceous Athabasca oil sands overlying this dissolution area. Epi-fluorescence was u ed to supplement conventional DST data, map oil migration routes, and to test the efficiency of a proposed trap configuration.

 

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91004 © 1991 AAPG Annual Convention Dallas, Texas, April 7-10, 1991 (2009)