The Viola Limestone in south-central Oklahoma is a Middle and Upper Ordovician carbonate unit interpreted as being deposited on a carbonate ramp within and peripheral to the southern Oklahoma aulacogen. Depositional environments within the study area ranged from anaerobic deep ramp through aerobic middle and shallow-ramp environments. Total organic carbon analyses of the lower anaerobic deep-ramp facies suggest that, at least locally, the Viola is a potential hydrocarbon source rock. Detailed petrographic examination of the Viola indicates that primary porosity in the shallow-ramp skeletal packstones and grainstones was initially quite high. This combination of source potential and original porosity should make the Viola an attractive target for hydrocarbons in southern O lahoma. The Viola, however, has been subjected to a complex sequence of diagenetic events that have extensively altered the sediments and occluded much of the primary porosity. A thorough understanding of the timing and nature of these events can be critical in evaluating the economic potential of the Viola.

Petrographic evidence combined with the use of cathodoluminescence indicates that several generations of calcite cementation occurred within the shallow-ramp packstones and grainstones. An initial phase of very early, possible synsedimentary marine cementation is evidenced by cloudy, inclusion-rich syntaxial cements on echinoderm fragments. This early phase of cementation was followed by several generations of clear syntaxial calcite, prismatic calcite, blocky mosaic calcite, and bladed mosaic calcite, all of which indicate changes in the pore-water chemistry from the inclusion-rich cements. This phase of meteoric phreatic cementation occurred soon after the marine cementation and occluded virtually all remaining primary reservoir porosity.

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