3D Modeling of
(Visean-Serpukhovian) Mississippian Mounds, Indian Wells, Sacramento
Mountains, New Mexico
Janson, Xavier1, Toni Simo2,
sergio Nardon3 (1) The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX (2)
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (3) ENI E&P, San Donato Milanese,
Italy
Mississippian strata in the Sacramento Mountains provide a classical
exposure of Carboniferous Waulsortian mounds. The Mississippian Lake Valley ramp that crops out
along the western escarpment of the Sacramento Mountain shows a range of mounds
size and architecture depending on the position along the ramp profile. This
study focuses on reconstructing in 3 dimensions the architecture of several
small up-dip mound complexes within a 2.5 x 1.5 Km window. The mounds show at
least three phases of mainly aggradational growth. Coeval with mound growth,
flank debris and allochtonous debris have been funneled through the inter-mound
depressions, resulting in a complex interfingering and onlapping architecture.
The location of the mounds is controlled by antecedent topography, created by
possible deformation and erosion of the older distal ramp deposits, whereas the
mound architecture is a direct result of increasing available accommodation.
Combining field mapping, ground base LiDAR and ground penetrating radar (GPR)
in several canyons that expose the mound system along mostly strike
perpendicular directions allows 5 stratigraphic surfaces to be reconstructed in
three dimensions. These surfaces form the framework for a 2 x 1.5 Km geocellular
model, which is populated with facies information using standard kriging and
Gaussian simulation.