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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
Houston Geological Society Bulletin
Abstract
Geological
Society Bulletin, Volume
42, No. 2
Abstract: A Re-evaluation of the Hackberry -
New Life for a Comatose Trend
By
Mayne & Mertz Inc.
Houston, Texas
The Hackberry trend of southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana has posed one of the Gulf Coast's most perplexing targets for petroleum exploration. Thick pay with outstanding reservoir quality at moderate drilling depths has lured many explorationists to try to unlock its potential. However, reservoir extent has, in the past, been unpredictable, at least in part as a result of multiple unconformities and poor structural and stratigraphic resolution. Economic success was elusive, and the play was d but abandoned during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
A regional re-evaluation of the geologic model arose from the
assimilation of well log correlations, dipmeter use and evaluation,
interpretation of paleo reports, and the combination of
quality 2-D seismic data
throughout Jefferson and Orange
Counties, Texas, and Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana. From this work
it became very apparent that the majority of the trend should be
interpreted as a subunconformity/slump block play and not a
deep-marine, basin-floor/turbidite sequence. The new model
predicted reservoir extent and thickness concisely and logically,
not as an artistic
contouring
exercise.
The history of the basin is one of prograding shallow-marine deposition rising out of the lower Frio Formation through the Nodosaria blanpaedi and Nonion struma zones, followed by thick shallow-water deposition of up to 500 feet of strand plain sands in the upper Frio Formation. Basin collapse, resulting from regional salt withdrawal and development of salt domes caused over-steepening of the sea floor, resulting in slumping within the soft sediments h m the Vicksburg Formation through the early strand plain deposits. Wave-base erosion removed the majority of the youngest sand section. It was followed by marine shale deposition containing a diagnostic Hackberry faunal assemblage. As subsidence ceased and the basin finally filled with shale, shallow-marine strand plain deposition continued through deposition of the upper Frio section.
Armed with this geologic model, a group of industry partners
partook to gather regional 3D seismic coverage in order to take
advantage of greater than 500 undrilled square miles that still
existed in the trend. Eventually the effort resulted in 24 successful
wells out of 29 attempts. Additional information from
over 520 square miles of 3D seismic data
and our drilling
shows that the model developed earlier has been highly
accurate and very helpful in predicting reservoir age and extent
and production performance of individual wells. This work
has renewed the interest in exploration throughout this play
and resulted in more than 900 square miles of 3D
data
acquisition
and an additional 40 wells being drilled by other oil and
gas companies.
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