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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Special Volumes

Abstract


 
Chapter from: M 63:  Unconformities and Porosity in Carbonate Strata 
Edited By
D.A. Budd, A.H. Saller, and P.M. Harris

Author:
Carol A. Hill

Carbonate Reservoirs

Published 1995 as part of Memoir 63
Copyright © 1995 The American Association of Petroleum Geologists.   All Rights Reserved.

 
Chapter 15

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H2S-Related Porosity and Sulfuric Acid
Oil-Field Karst

Carol A. Hill
Consulting Geologist
Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A.


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ABSTRACT

"H2S-related porosity" refers to porosity created in a H2S system where dissolution can be produced by the mixing of waters of different H2S content or by the oxidation of H2S. "Sulfuric acid oil-field karst" refers to a specific kind of H2S-related porosity where carbonate reservoirs of cavernous size have been dissolved by a sulfuric acid mechanism. In a H2S system, porosity can be produced entirely in the deep subsurface and does not have to represent a paleokarst surface or dissolution in the shallow-phreatic or vadose zones.

H2S-related porosity is characterized by the large volume of hydrocarbons it can host, by extensive fracture permeability interconnected with "spongework" cavities or caves of tens to hundreds of meters in extent, by porosity related to structural and/or stratigraphic traps, and by the presence of high uranium and/or iron. Possible examples of H2S-generated porosity systems are the Lisburne field, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, and some of the extremely productive fields of the Middle East.

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