Stratigraphically trapped accumulations of oil in the Lone Tree Creek and Lodgepole Creek fields occur within and just updip from a fluvial meander belt within the Fall River Formation. The meander belt can be mapped north-to-south over a distance of at least 100 mi (161 km) in the eastern part of the Powder River basin. The northern part of the meander belt contains the oil fields of the Coyote Creek-Miller Creek trend; the southern part contains only the relatively small Lone Tree Creek and Lodgepole Creek fields. These small fields are of considerable interest, as they display a style of stratigraphic trapping of hydrocarbons not observed in the prolific Coyote Creek-Miller Creek trend. The stratigraphic traps of the Coyote Creek-Miller Creek trend occur at updip-facin convexities along the eastern edge of the meander belt, with abandonment clay plugs serving as lateral permeability barriers to hydrocarbon migration. Oil has been produced in part of the Lone Tree Creek field from a similar trap. The remaining part of Lone Tree Creek field and Lodgepole Creek field produce from stratigraphic traps formed by lateral pinch-outs of delta-front sandstone bodies. These traps are situated updip from and apparently in continuity with the meander-belt deposits, indicating that they may have been charged with hydrocarbons that found their way through the clay-plug barriers along the margin of the meander belt. Similar, undiscovered traps may exist updip from Fall River meander belts elsewhere in the basin.

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