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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 65 (1981)

Issue: 5. (May)

First Page: 899

Last Page: 899

Title: Hatter's Pond Field: Complex Combination Trap in Smackover and Norphlet Formations (Upper Jurassic), Southwest Alabama: ABSTRACT

Author(s): D. Joe Benson, Ernest A. Mancini, Richard P. Wilkerson

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

The Hatter's Pond field in northern Mobile County, Alabama, has produced 7 million bbl of condensate and 26 Bcf of gas since its discovery in 1974. Production is from the Upper Jurassic Norphlet and Smackover Formations which form a transgressive-regressive package overlying the Jurassic Louann Salt. The Norphlet Formation is a subarkose which was deposited in a coastal dune complex. Subenvironments identified include dune, interdune, wadi, and an upper, massive marine sand lithology which is gradational into the overlying Smackover Formation. The Smackover Formation in the Hatter's Pond field is composed of mudstones, peloidal packstones, oolitic grainstones, and nodular anhydrite deposited in a coastal sabkha complex. The Smackover grades upward into the Buckner Anhydri e Member of the Haynesville Formation. Reservoir development in both the Norphlet and Smackover is facies selective and a product of diagenesis.

Porosity in the Norphlet is most abundant in the massive marine and dune lithlogies and is mesogenetic, secondary porosity formed by the solution of eogenetic carbonate cement and/or solution of grains. Smackover porosity is moldic in the higher energy lithofacies and intercrystalline to vuggy in the finer grained lithologies, with dolomitization and leaching as major factors in porosity evolution. Algal-rich mudstones within the Smackover provide an internal source for the hydrocarbons.

The trapping mechanism in the field is a highly complex, combination structural and stratigraphic trap. The structural component involves salt movement in association with normal faulting. Porosity distribution, and hence reservoir development, is facies selective and is significantly modified by diagenetic alteration. A thorough understanding of facies distribution, diagenetic alteration, and structural relations is necessary for delineation of combination petroleum traps in the Hatter's Pond area.

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Copyright 1997 American Association of Petroleum Geologists