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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

GCAGS Transactions

Abstract


Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions
Vol. 44 (1994), Pages 772-772

Abstract: The Tallahala Creek Complex, Smith County, Mississippi: The Crest Is Not Always the Best

Edwin E. Sticker

ABSTRACT

The Tallahala Creek complex, comprising both Tallahala Creek and East Tallahala Creek fields, is a salt-induced anticline transected by two down-to-the-north fault systems. Since 1967, the upper portion of the Jurassic Smackover Formation has yielded almost 15 million bbl of oil and 20 billion ft3 of gas, or 75 percent and 64 percent of the total oil and gas, respectively, produced from the fields. Contemporaneous sediment accumulation and structural growth have created various lithofacies in the upper Smackover, thereby significantly affecting reservoir heterogeneity. These lithofacies can be delineated by their structural position on the anticline. On the most downdip and downthrown portions of the structure, the upper Smackover consists of a series of gray, fine- to medium-grained sandstones separated by limestones. These sandstones generally exhibit both high porosity and permeability and have thus contributed more than 95 percent of the total Smackover production. Updip the upper Smackover becomes increasingly calcareous, finally grading into a sandy, in some places dolomitic, limestone on the crest and southern upthrown flank of the anticline. This limestone lithofacies has been noncommercial as a reservoir rock, as evidenced by the less than 7,000 bbl of oil cumulatively produced from the Smackover in two of the structurally highest wells, the Shell 2 E. M. Lane and the Shell 1 F. James. Structural and stratigraphic relationships discovered through field development of the Tallahala Creek complex have significantly altered the conventional idea that "the crest is always the best."

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND ASSOCIATED FOOTNOTES

Mississippi Office of Geology, P.O. Box 20307, Jackson, MS 39289

Copyright © 1999 by The Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies