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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
AAPG Bulletin
Abstract
AAPG Bulletin, V.
Sedimentation, stratigraphy, and petroleum potential of Krishna-Godavari basin, East Coast of India
G. N. Rao1
1Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, India, EXCOM Section SRBC, X(W) CMDA Towers, 8 Gandhi-Irwin Road, Egmore, Chennai-600 008, India; email: [email protected]
AUTHORS
G. N. Rao works as deputy general manager (geology) at Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), India. He received his M.Sc. (tech.) degree in applied geology in 1975 and Ph.D. in 1994 from Andhra University. He studied at the Indian School of Mines for an M.Tech. degree in petroleum exploration during 1984. He has experience in analyzing hydrocarbon prospectivity in all the eastern divergent margin basins of India. His interests include global tectonics in relation to basin evolution for petroleum exploration and genesis of abnormal formation pressures. Rao has associated with Soviet specialists in assessing the hydrocarbon resources of India and with the Institute Francais du Petrole Paris team for thrust-pach modeling for fold belts of the northeastern convergent margin of India.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank ONGC Ltd. for providing the data and permitting to publish the same. I also thank S. N. Talukdar, former member (exploration), and P. K. Chandra, former vice-chairman of ONGC, for critically reviewing the manuscript. The guidance provided by K. Satyanarayana of ONGC and C. Kasipathi of Andhra University and help from James Peters of ONGC in shaping the work is gratefully acknowledged. I thank the AAPG reviewers Bob Reynolds, Ben Law, and Mauren Wan for their constructive criticism of the manuscript. Thanks to Firoz Dhotiwala of Kesava Deva Malvya Institute of Petroleum Exploration for providing expert technical help in presenting the Landsat images. Finally I wish to express my deep sense of gratitude to A. W. Balley of Rice University, Houston, Texas, for his encouragement and valuable guidance in reshaping the text.
ABSTRACT
The Krishna-Godavari basin is located in the central part of the eastern passive continental margin of India. The structural
grain of the basin is northeast-southwest. Exposures of Upper Cretaceous sedimentary rocks demarcate the basin margin toward the north
west, where the northwest-southeast-trending Pranahita-Godavari graben abuts the basin. The basin contains thick sequences of sediments with several cycles of deposition ranging in age from Late Carboniferous to Holocene. A major delta with a thick, argillaceous facies that has prograded seaward since the Late Cretaceous is a hydrocarbon exploration target.
Magnetic and gravity data predicted the basin architecture, which was subsequently confirmed by a multichannel seismic sur vey. The basin is divided into subbasins by fault-controlled ridges. Sediments accumulated in subbasins more than 5 km thick. Above the basement ridges, thin sediments are found. Until the Jurassic period, sediments were deposited in the rift valley and in topo graphic lows. This sequence is completely overlain by a Lower Cretaceous, transgressive sedimentary wedge. Later, continued delta progradation characterized basin sedimentation.
With an areal extent of approximately 45,000 km2, this proven petroliferous basin has potential reservoirs ranging in age from the Permian to the Pliocene. Exploratory drilling of more than 350 wells in more than 160 structures has resulted in the discovery of 42 oil and gas bearing structures. Good source rocks are known from sequences ranging in age from Permian-Carboniferous to early Miocene. Because the reservoir sand bodies have limited lateral variation, understanding the stratigraphy and depositional sub
environments in different sequences is essential to decipher the favorable locales for reservoir sands. Tilted fault blocks, growth faults, and related rollover anticlines provide the structural
traps.
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