About This Item

Share This Item

The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract

AAPG Bulletin, V. 98, No. 3 (March 2014), P. 429447.

Copyright copy2014. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.

DOI:10.1306/08071313039

Athabasca oil sands: Megatrap restoration and charge timing

Richard S. J. Tozer,1 Albert P. Choi,2 Jeffrey T. Pietras,3 Donald J. Tanasichuk4

1BP Canada, 240 4th Avenue SW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; present address: BP Exploration, 580 Westlake Park Boulevard, Houston, Texas; [email protected]
2BP Canada, 240 4th Avenue SW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; [email protected]
3BP Canada, 240 4th Avenue SW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; present address: Department of Geological Sciences and Environmental Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, P.O. Box 6000, Binghamton, New York; [email protected]
4BP Canada, 240 4th Avenue SW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; [email protected]

ABSTRACT

The petroleum trap for the Athabasca oil sands has remained elusive because it was destroyed by flexural loading of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin during the Late Cretaceous and Paleocene. The original trap extent is preserved because the oil was biodegraded to immobile bitumen as the trap was being charged during the Late Cretaceous. Using well and outcrop data, it is possible to reconstruct the Cretaceous overburden horizons beyond the limit of present-day erosion. Sequential restoration of the reconstructed horizons reveals a megatrap at the top of the Wabiskaw-McMurray reservoir in the Athabasca area at 84 Ma (late Santonian). The megatrap is a four-way anticline with dimensions 285 times 125 km (177 times 78 mi) and maximum amplitude of 60 m (197 ft). The southeastern margin of the anticline shows good conformance to the bitumen edge for 140 km (87 mi). To the northeast of the anticline, bitumen is present in a shallower trap domain in what is interpreted to be an onlap trap onto the Canadian Shield; leakage along the onlap edge is indicated by tarry bitumen outliers preserved in basement rocks farther to the northeast. Peripheral trap domains that lie below the paleospillpoint, in northern, southern, and southwestern Athabasca, and Wabasca, are interpreted to represent a late charge of oil that was trapped by bitumen already emplaced in the anticline and the northeastern onlap trap. This is consistent with kimberlite intrusions containing live bitumen, which indicate that the northern trap domain was charged not before 78 Ma. The trap restoration has been tested using bitumen-water contact well picks. The restored picks fall into groups that are consistent both with the trap domains determined from the top reservoir restoration and the conceptual charge model in which the four-way anticline was filled first, followed by the northeastern onlap trap, and then the peripheral trap domains.

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].