--> The Downdip Yegua-Cook Mountain Play of the Houston Salt Basin: Exploration Opportunities in Basin Floor Fan, Slope Fan and Prograding Complex Sandstones, by T. B. Eschner, B. A. Luneau, E. Gomez, and A. J. Scott; #90986 (1994).

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Abstract: The Downdip Yegua-Cook Mountain Play of the Houston Salt Basin: Exploration Opportunities in Basin Floor Fan, Slope Fan and Prograding Complex Sandstones

Terry B. Eschner, Barbara A. Luneau, Ernest Gomez, Alan J. Scott

Approximately 700 BCFG have been produced in the past fifteen years from the downdip Yegua and Cook Mountain formations (Eocene) of the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana. Downdip reservoirs are predominantly lowstand systems tract sandstones from basin-floor fans, slope fans and prograding complexes. Significant exploration opportunities are present in the Houston Salt basin in underexplored, thick, widespread lowstand strata that occur in each of the five sequences of the Yegua and Cook Mountain formations.

Much of the recent, successful exploratory drilling has targeted expanded, prograding complex sandstones associated with growth faults. Several prograding complexes remain lightly explored despite local production from these units and tremendous production from similar stratigraphic intervals in adjacent Jackson and Wharton counties.

Turbidite sandstones from basin-floor fans and slope fans comprise a significant portion of the proven downdip reservoirs, and represent an important new exploration play. Basin-floor fan deposits are characterized by sandstone intervals up to 300 feet thick that consist internally of thin (generally less than 3 feet thick), stacked turbidite sandstone beds. Slope-fan deposits are also characterized by thick intervals of stacked turbidite sandstones, but with abundant interbedded shale.

Exploratory risk in the downdip play is reduced by identifying updip incised valleys that were conduits for sand transport to lowstand environments. Incised valley fill commonly consists of aggraded fluvial and estuarine sandstones. Syndepositional salt tectonics, growth faults and lateral facies variations influence the type and distribution of plays in this underexplored trend.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90986©1994 AAPG Annual Convention, Denver, Colorado, June 12-15, 1994