AAPG Studies in Geology No. 50,
(Section Title: The Ferron Sandstone -- Overview and Reservoir Analog) Chapter 3: Facies
of the Ferron Sandstone, East-Central Utah, by Thomas A. Ryer and Paul B. Anderson,
Pages 59 - 78
from:
AAPG Studies in Geology No. 50: Regional
to Wellbore Analog for Fluvial-Deltaic Reservoir Modeling: The Ferron Sandstone of Utah,
Edited by Thomas C. Chidsey, Jr., Roy D. Adams, and Thomas H. Morris
Copyright © 2004 by The American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the
Society of Exploration Geophysicists. All rights reserved.
The Ferron Sandstone --
Overview and Reservoir Analog
Chapter 3:
Facies of the Ferron Sandstone, East-Central Utah
Thomas A. Ryer1 and Paul B. Anderson2
1The ARIES Group, Inc., Katy, Texas
2Consulting Geologist, Salt Lake City, Utah
ABSTRACT
The Upper Cretaceous Ferron Sandstone represents a spectrum of
depositional environments and facies spanning offshore marine to alluvial plain. Because
they are very well exposed, are readily accessible, and have been extensively studied,
these deposits serve as excellent analogs for many oil and gas reservoirs. Sediment was
delivered to the Ferron depositional system by eastward- to northward-flowing rivers
represented by sandy channelbelts. The rivers were generally meandering, although some
were lower-sinuosity streams. Flood basins adjacent to the channelbelts accumulated
predominantly muddy sediment, sandy crevasse-splay deposits, and, locally, peat. Peat
accumulated in belts that roughly correspond to the lower part of the coastal plain and
generally paralleled the shoreline. The geometries of individual, thick bodies of coal
vary greatly. The dynamics of peat accumulation was controlled primarily by the rate of
relative sea level rise.
