--> Abstract: A High Resolution Quantitative 3d Outcrop Model of a Late Triassic Gravel Dominated Braided Fluvial System (Minas Basin, Nova Scotia, Canada), by Xavier van Lanen, David Hodgetts, Jonathan Redfern, Brian Williams, and Sophie Leleu; #90082 (2008)

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A High Resolution Quantitative 3d Outcrop Model of a Late Triassic Gravel Dominated Braided Fluvial System (Minas Basin, Nova Scotia, Canada)

Xavier van Lanen1, David Hodgetts1, Jonathan Redfern1, Brian Williams2, and Sophie Leleu2
1School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, Manchester University, Manchester, United Kingdom
2Department of Geology and Petroleum Geology, King's College, Aberdeen, United Kingdom

The continental Wolfville Formation was deposited in a rift basin setting during Anisian to Carnian age, and belongs to the Newark Supergroup basins. It is superbly exposed in both cliff sections and on extensive wave-cut platforms along the Minas Basin shore (Nova Scotia, Canada). The nature of the exposure provides unique three-dimensional sections, offering a valuable insight in the sedimentology and the facies geometries and distribution of a red bed braided fluvial-aeolian facies suite.

The study area is located on the southern Minas Basin shore and measures 400 m by 350 m. It comprises Carnian aged sediments that show a cyclicity of coarse pebbly sandstone / conglomerate to (pebbly) sandstone. The limited amount of preserved mud to silt material throughout this gravel dominated system contains faunal remains and palaeosol horizons. The base is characterised by the discordant contact with the Carboniferous and a thin alluvial derived pebbly sandstone / conglomerate unit.

Quantitative outcrop data, collected with LiDAR and DGPS is integrated with traditional geological field and laboratory data (sedimentological logs, palaeocurrent information, structural and petrophysical measurements) into a digital outcrop model (DOM). The DOM is then used for mapping the observed geological objects, and to evaluate their geometries and distribution. The results offer a better understanding of the depositional system, and provides a geological framework for reservoir models.

Such information aids improved reservoir characterisation and geostatistical modelling, as well as help explain seismic reflection data and improve flow model simulations for subsurface reservoirs.

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