Abstract: Mud Blankets, Compaction Folds, Growth Faults, Stacking Patterns, Submarine Canyons/Fans and Other Curiosities of the Sacramento Basin

CHERVEN, VICTOR B., UEC, Inc., Valley Springs, CA andPETER J. FISCHER, California State University, Northridge and MESA Cubed, Inc., Whittier, CA

Our presentation is a potpourri of maps, cross sections, and seismic lines that illustrate the types of stratigraphic and structural features that characterize the Upper Cretaceous through lower Eocene strata of the Sacramento Basin gas province. The examples are drawn from industry sponsored regional studies, gas exploration efforts, and student mapping/research projects spanning the years 1978-1997. Our posters are primarily aimed at explorationists seeking to gain additional insight into the factors that complicate gas entrapment in the Sacramento Valley and to students and younger geologists with limited exposure to the wealth of stratigraphic detail that can be gleaned from subsurface data.

Individual posters illustrate particular topics, such as the prevalence of small anticlinal gas pools formed by differential compaction of linear channel-sand bodies and flanking overbank mudstones, the stratigraphic distribution of gas reservoirs in the Winters Formation, the geometry and gas potential of one lobe of the Winters submarine fan, and the lateral extent and thickness variations of the mud blankets that record intervals of fan abandonment and/or deltaic regression.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90935©1998 AAPG Pacific Section Meeting, Ventura, California