Natural fractures play an important role in determining gas production from the low-permeability reservoirs of the Mesaverde Group in the Piceance Creek basin, Colorado. The importance of natural fractures is evident from the number of natural fractures observed in core and from the high in-situ permeabilities measured in well tests as compared to the low permeabilities measured in core. An understanding of the natural fracture systems requires knowledge of variations in the state of stress and changes in the physical and mechanical properties of the different sedimentary layers during the evolution of the basin. Geologic processes such as burial, diagenesis, tectonics, uplift, and erosion, and their resultant effects on the overburden, pore pressure, temperature, and str in were included in an elastic-plastic model to approximate the stress history of the basin. These data, coupled with an extended von Mises failure criterion derived from laboratory experiments of the rocks in question, were used to predict the relative time and type of fracturing, and the lithologic layers in which a fracture was likely to occur. Observations of fractures in 4,200 ft (1,280 m) of core (1,200 ft, 365 m, of oriented core) from the Mesaverde Group taken from the United States Department of Energy's 3 closely spaced wells near Rifle, Colorado, have been used to document the genesis of natural fractures and substantiate the model results. Empirical information such as the present state of in-situ stress determined from hydraulic fracture stress tests and anelastic strain rec very measurements of oriented core, paleostrain directions and magnitudes determined from analysis of calcite twin lamallae, and current temperature and pore pressure provided data as well as checks on the accuracy of the model.

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