Diagenetic Overprint of Original Depositional Architecture in a Shallow Water Carbonate Reservoir, Permian Basin, Texas

Stephen C. Ruppel and F. J. Lucia

Permian shallow-water carbonate reservoirs are highly heterogeneous because of complex variations in depositional facies produced by high-frequency sea level rise and fall. Accordingly, establishment of a cycle stratigraphic framework is fundamental to defining reservoir heterogeneity. Because nearly all of these reservoirs have experienced multiple episodes of dolomitization and sulfate emplacement, however, permeability is also a function of diagenetic overprint. The extent to which diagenesis can affect permeability development is dramatically displayed in the Grayburg Formation (middle Permian) at South Cowden field, West Texas.

Three scales of cyclicity contribute to original depositional facies heterogeneity in the Grayburg; high-frequency cycles, averaging 3 meters in thickness, constitute the fundamental architectural element in the main reservoir interval. Despite original depositional heterogeneity due to this cyclicity, however, permeability development is substantially the result of two diagenetic events: (1) dolomite diagenesis in vertically burrowed wackestones and packstones and (2) late alteration and removal of anhydrite.

Dolomite diagenesis in vertically burrowed wackestones and packstones has produced Irregular vertical zones of higher permeability in mud-dominated bases of high-frequency cycles in leeward ramp-crest highstand successions. Because dolomite diagenesis is concentrated in burrowed highstand successions, the distribution of resultant permeability trends is partly constrained by patterns of long-term accommodation and high frequency cyclicity. Anhydrite diagenesis, which is characterized by conversion to gypsum or by complete removal of sulfate, is developed along basinward margins of the field and cross cuts original depositional framework. Mapping of zones of anhydrite diagenesis using cores and acoustic log porosity signatures demonstrates that alteration and removal of sulfate and att ndant permeability enhancement is highly irregular at the interwell scale.

AAPG Search and Discover Article #91019©1996 AAPG Convention and Exhibition 19-22 May 1996, San Diego, California