ABSTRACT: Stratigraphic Capture: A Depositional Process Facilitating Fluid and Gas Movement Between Porous and Permeable Beds

ECHOLS, JOHN B., and DON A. GODDARD, Basin Research Institute, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA

Stratigraphic capture is a depositional process that permits vertical and/or lateral movement or flow of fluids and gases between porous

and permeable facies. The process is driven by pressure-density differences between formation fluids and/or gases, and is exclusive of flow along fault planes and across unconformities, and involves no flow from a porous, permeable sandstone into an adjoining shale, or vice-versa.

Communication between beds can occur as the result of scouring and channel filling during development of a distributary channel or infilling by bar sands of scoured tidal channels. In addition to fluid exchange across stratigraphic boundary interfaces, stratigraphic capture includes fluid flow resulting from contact of porous and permeable strata with fractured lignite (coal).

Stratigraphic capture is observed in the Lake Curry field, Concordia Parish, Louisiana, where the Artman and underlying Nichols sand reservoirs are the primary oil producers of the field. Artman production is confined to the southwest and northeast parts of the field where the reservoir is in stratigraphic contact with the Nichols sand.

Other examples of oil reservoirs believed to originate from the stratigraphic capture process are the overlying C/5 Turner, Yakey, Miller and Tew Lake sands.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91014©1992 AAPG GCAGS and GC-SEPM Meeting, Jackson, Mississippi, October 21-23, 1992 (2009)