About This Item

Share This Item

The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 31 (1947)

Issue: 1. (January)

First Page: 92

Last Page: 148

Title: Relationship of Crude Oils and Stratigraphy in Parts of Oklahoma and Kansas

Author(s): Research Committee (2), Tulsa Geological Society

Abstract:

An investigation of several hundred analyses of crude oils from several Paleozoic zones, ranging from the upper part of the Arbuckle limestone of Ordovician age to sands of Pennsylvanian age in northeastern Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas, shows the following results.

1. The oils from 43 pools investigated in the oil-bearing beds associated with the unconformity at the top of the Arbuckle limestone contain 31 classes or varieties of oil, and the oils from 22 pools in the beds associated with the unconformity at the top of the "Mississippi lime" contain 13 classes or varieties of oils; many classes in each of these two zones are represented by only one pool and the other classes by only a few pools.

2. The oils from 34 pools in the Bartlesville sand contain 6 classes of oil, but at least three of the classes are in sand lenses, called Bartlesville, that are of different age and lie at different stratigraphic positions; the oils from 16 pools in the Bartlesville sand, distributed through an area 30 miles long and 12 miles wide, fall in one class.

3. The oils from 33 pools in the Burbank sand, distributed through an area 150 miles long and 1 to 35 miles wide, fall in one class.

4. In Oklahoma each of seven oil-bearing zones younger than the Burbank sand and in Kansas each of four such zones contains a separate class of oil.

5. Each of four pools in the Squirrel (Prue) sand, which is one of the 7 zones mentioned under 4, contains a separate class of oil; inasmuch as the Squirrel (Prue) sand represents a series of lenses lying at various positions in a zone about 75 feet thick, the oil-bearing sands in the four pools probably are not precisely equivalent.

6. In each field wherein oil pools occur in several zones the oil of each zone is unlike the oil in the other zones.

7. The Bartlesville sand and the uppermost beds of the "Mississippi lime" contain similar oil in several pools in a narrow belt of country wherein the sand overlaps the "Mississippi lime."

These facts suggest that the environment of the source material may have determined the kind of oil of each oil pool. The local environment of beds in contact with the widespread unconformities at the top of the Arbuckle limestone and the top of the "Mississippi lime" were probably most variable; these beds contain the greatest variety of oils. The Burbank sand is confined to a thin stratigraphic zone; it was deposited in a narrow belt of country along the western shore of the Cherokee sea and the shoreline can be identified through a total length of about 150 miles. The environment during the time of deposition of the Burbank sand should have been similar all along the shore. It is significant, therefore, that the oil of all oil pools in the Burbank sand lenses of that belt are simil r.

The structural movements that formed the many local domes, anticlines, synclines, and basins appear not to have changed the character of the oil, for the oil in the pools in the Burbank sand is similar throughout a distance of 150 miles wherein many types of folds are present. The present depth of burial likewise appears not to have altered the character of the oil, for the oil of the Burbank sand where it lies at a depth of 1,400 feet is similar to that found in the same sand at a depth of 2,900 feet or more. The low-gravity oils in several pools in the Arbuckle limestone in southeastern Kansas and in one pool in northeastern Oklahoma, that contain none of the lighter fractions common to most oils, have the appearance of weathered oils. They may have been weathered in post-Chattanoog time while the Chattanooga shale likely was being eroded from many small tracts and from at least one very large tract in northeastern Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas. The fact that the waters in the Arbuckle limestone in the area containing these pools appear to have been diluted by meteoric waters from the Ozark region has suggested to some that the oils were weathered by their contact with the waters.

End_Page 92------------------------------

Pay-Per-View Purchase Options

The article is available through a document delivery service. Explain these Purchase Options.

Watermarked PDF Document: $14
Open PDF Document: $24

AAPG Member?

Please login with your Member username and password.

Members of AAPG receive access to the full AAPG Bulletin Archives as part of their membership. For more information, contact the AAPG Membership Department at [email protected].