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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

Williston Basin Symposium

Abstract

MTGS-AAPG

Seventh International Williston Basin Symposium, July 23, 1995 (SP12)

Pages 303 - 312

Hydrogeology and the Distribution of Oil Pools, South-Central Saskatchewan

David C. Toop, Earth Sciences Division, Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T5J 3N9
J. Tóth, Department of Geology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E3

ABSTRACT

Formation water flow patterns and chemistry have been a controlling influence on the migration, accumulation and preservation of hydrocarbons of the Williston Basin in south-central Saskatchewan. Two major competing flow regimes are active in the Paleozoic aquifers of the region. A dominant, gravity driven, meteoric flow system with a potentiometric surface that resembles the topographic surface, is entering the region from the southwest. A second flow system of deep basin brines from the center of the Williston Basin enters the region from the southeast. It is part of a sluggish basin-wide flow system, apparently unrelated to local topography. The brines are important agents of transport and preservation of petroleum in the region.

The distribution of the region's hydrocarbon accumulations may be explained in terms of the hydraulic theory of petroleum migration. Oil was transported from mature source beds with the formation waters toward traps in potentiometric lows. Cross-formational migration of hydrocarbons has occurred upwards through a linear zone of salt removal known as the Hummingbird trough. Future oil discoveries in Paleozoic aquifers of south-central Saskatchewan will likely be made in potentiometric lows east of the Hummingbird Trough and along the Coronach Trough.

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