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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
Houston Geological Society Bulletin
Abstract
Abstract: Exploration in Jurassic of North Mafla,
Eastern Gulf of Mexico
By
Exploration in North Mafla focuses on general categories
of prospects, potential reservoirs and their associated
facies, and seismic
modeling
of available well control.
Jurassic prospects in North Mafla can be classified into four general categories: (1) basement-related structures, (2) closures associated with the Pensacola-Destin peripheral fault trend, (3) salt anticlines, and (4) prospects associated with interregional structural highs. Each of these categories can be related to documented, predictable, and repeated patterns of hydrocarbon accumulations in east Texas, north Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.
The primary objectives in North Mafla are the Jurassic
Smackover carbonates and Norphlet sands at depths
ranging from 15,000 to 25,000 ft. Major gas accumulations in
the Norphlet around Mobile Bay are separated from thicker
sequences of Norphlet sands in the De Soto Salt Basin by
the offshore extension of the Pensacola Arch. Seismic
geometries suggest that Smackover high-energy carbonates
may have been deposited on the crest of some of these thick
Norphlet sands.
Seismic
modeling
indicates that a high-amplitude, laterally
continuous event associated with a Norphlet-Louann
Salt contact is dependent on the presence of Pine Hill
Anhydrite member of the Louann Salt. In addition,
seismic
reflection geometries indicate that the Norphlet sandstone
thickens from +300 ft. on the eastern flank of the Destin
Dome to nearly 1,000 ft. nearby.
Although drilling in the lightly explored North Mafla area has yielded few substantive results to date, the elements necessary for significant hydrocarbon accumulations are known to exist.
Figure 1. Norphlet Paleogeography.
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