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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 66 (1982)

Issue: 5. (May)

First Page: 610

Last Page: 611

Title: Petroleum Geology of Central Beaufort Sea, Northwest Territories, Canada: ABSTRACT

Author(s): V. E. Mroszcak, D. R. Horn, D. S. Turner

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

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Drilling on the continental shelf of the Central Beaufort Sea has led to significant oil and gas discoveries. There is considerable optimism that the region may encompass a new oil basin. Hydrocarbons are present in Eocene and Oligocene strata. The environment of deposition, established by paleontology and seismic facies analysis, is deep marine. Reservoirs are considered to be sand, transported by turbidity currents and deposited as deep-sea fans. The resulting accumulations are constructional in that they form large mounds and are readily identified on seismic sections taken parallel with the sedimentary strike of the deposits. Traps are stratigraphic where closure is the result of deposition, and structural where shale swells have arched the sand layers. Timing of the latter may pl y a significant role in the migration and final concentration of hydrocarbons. Marine shales form an effective seal.

The first conventional cores of the reservoirs were cut during the 1981 drilling season. At Koakoak 0-22, several oil-bearing sands were recovered. Porosities averaged 29% and permeabilities ranged from 61 to 2,500 md with an average of 1,000 md. The fine to medium-grained sands are friable with very little clay matrix.

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Copyright 1997 American Association of Petroleum Geologists