Natural underground reservoirs capable of containing water, petroleum, and gases include sandstones, limestones, dolomites, and fractured rocks of various types. Comprehensive research and exploration efforts by the petroleum industry have revealed much about the character and distribution of carbonate rocks (limestones and dolomites) and sandstones. Porosity and permeability of the deposits are criteria for determining their efficiency as reservoirs for fluids. Trends of certain sandstones are predictable. Furthermore, sandstone reservoirs have been less affected than carbonate reservoirs by postdepositional cementation and compaction. Fracture porosity has received less concentrated study; hence, we know less about this type of reservoir. The discussions in this paper a e confined to sandstone reservoirs.

The principal sandstone-generating environments are (1) fluvial environments such as alluvial fans, braided streams, and meandering streams; (2) distributary-channel and delta-front environments of various types of deltas; (3) coastal barrier islands, tidal channels, and chenier plains; (4) desert and coastal eolian plains; and (5) deeper marine environments, where the sands are distributed by both normal and density currents.

The alluvial-fan environment is characterized by flash floods and mudflows or debris flows which deposit the coarsest and most irregular sand bodies. Braided streams have numerous shallow channels separated by broad sandbars; lateral channel migration results in the deposition of thin, lenticular sand bodies. Meandering streams migrate within belts 20 times the channel width and deposit two very common types of sand bodies. The processes of bank-caving and point-bar accretion result in lateral channel migration and the formation of sand bodies (point bars) within each meander loop. Natural cut-offs and channel diversions result in the abandonment of individual meanders and long channel segments, respectively. Rapidly abandoned channels are filled with some sand but predominantly with ine-grained sediments (clay plugs), whereas gradually abandoned channels are filled mainly with sands and silts.

The most common sandstone reservoirs are of deltaic origin. They are laterally equivalent to fluvial sands and prodelta and marine clays, and they consist of two types: delta-front or fringe sands and abandoned distributary-channel sands. Fringe sands are sheetlike, and their landward margins are abrupt (against organic clays of the deltaic plain). Seaward, these sands grade into the finer prodelta and marine sediments. Distributary-channel sandstone bodies are narrow, they have abrupt basal contacts, and they decrease in grain size upward. They cut into, or completely through, the fringe sands, and also connect with the upstream fluvial sands or braided or meandering streams.

Some of the more porous and permeable sandstone reservoirs are deposited in the coastal interdeltaic realm of sedimentation. They consist of well-sorted beach and shoreface sands associated with barrier islands and tidal channels which occur between barriers. Barrier sand bodies are long and narrow, are aligned parallel with the coastline, and are characterized by an upward increase in grain size. They are flanked on the landward side by lagoonal clays and on the opposite side by marine clays. Tidal-channel sand bodies have abrupt basal contacts and range in grain size from coarse at the base to fine at the top. Laterally, they merge with barrier sands and grade into the finer sediments of tidal deltas and mud flats.

The most porous and permeable sandstone reservoirs are products of wind activity in coastal and desert regions. Wind-laid (eolian) sands are typically very well sorted and highly crossbedded, and they occur as extensive sheets.

Marine sandstones are those associated with normal-marine processes of the continental shelf, slope, and deep and those due to density-current origin (turbidites). An important type of normal-marine sand is formed during marine transgressions. Although these sands are extremely thin, they are very distinctive and widespread, have sharp updip limits, and grade seaward into marine shales. Delta-fringe and barrier-shoreface sands are two other types of shallow-marine sands.

Turbidites have been interpreted to be associated with submarine canyons. These sands are transported from nearshore environments seaward through canyons and are deposited on submarine fans in deep marine basins. Other turbidites form as a result of slumping of deltaic facies at shelf edges. Turbidite sands are usually associated with thick marine shales.

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